


After The Rain

by kracken



Series: After the Rain [1]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: AU TWT-ness, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Language, Lemon, M/M, Pain, Self-Harm, Torture, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kracken/pseuds/kracken
Summary: Heero joins Duo in a mission during the war, but he finds understanding the pilot of Deathscythe a mission in itself.





	1. Invisible

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. With Kracken's permission, I began manually importing her works to the AO3 as part of an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017.

It was raining. The object of Heero's fascination didn't like it. Cozy in the school dorm, he leaned on the window sill and glared out at the dreary day.  
  
"So much for basketball," Duo grumbled and pushed himself away. He stretched like a cat, yawning, and then threw himself onto his single bed, disturbing the books and papers already scattered haphazardly over the blanket. He scooped them off with a swipe of one arm and then rolled onto his back and put his hands behind his head. He did all of that without managing to get his long, chestnut braid tangled underneath him.  
  
Heero, seated cross legged on his bed, was cleaning his gun, metal parts glittering in the lamplight around him. He grunted in reply to Duo's words and didn't look up.  
  
"That's the eleventh grunt in a row," Duo said sarcastically. "You should either work on your vocabulary or become a mime with Trowa."  
  
Heero felt a flush. He didn't reply to that, but he didn't say 'hn' again either.  
  
Duo watched Heero's face, his darker skin still not proof against showing a bloom of color on each cheek. He stared at it in fascination. Heero, embarrassed? It didn't fit with what he thought he knew about the pilot of Wing. Bored to tears, Duo mentally rubbed his hands together, eager to get under that blushing skin and get even more of a rise out of his silent, stone like partner.  
  
"Wanna talk?' Duo asked as he sat up, hands loose in his lap and legs crossed. Heero looked at him, the same, unreadable look he always gave Duo. "We've done coordinated missions with the other Gundam pilots, and I've bunked with you in some safe houses, but I don't really know anything about you. That bothers me when I know I have to trust my life to you while we're doing this mission together," Duo explained. "I need to know that my trust isn't misplaced."  
  
Heero put his gun together so fast that Duo could hardly follow his hands. Heero spun the chamber at the end of the demonstration, pointed it at Duo's heart, and then lowered it to put the bullets back into their chambers.  
  
"I don't need to prove myself to you," Heero replied at last. "I never asked for your trust. I follow orders from Dr. J. He told me to work with you on this mission. Otherwise, I would jettison you."  
  
Duo had swallowed, not sure how serious Heero was. The pointed gun had startled him, even though he had known that it wasn't loaded. Duo recognized it for the warning it was. 'Stay out of my way and don't bother me,' that action had said.  
  
"Well," Duo replied dryly, "That was more words than I've ever heard from you. Maybe it was worth it."  
  
Heero didn't acknowledge his sarcasm. He was pulling out his laptop and busily looking over the plans for the mission for the thousandth time. Secretly though, he was watching Duo surreptitiously to see what he would do next. He had found himself doing that a lot lately without really knowing why.  
  
Duo made a face. He reached down beside the bed and dug inside of a duffel bag there. After pulling out a computer pad, he flopped down onto his stomach on the bed again. Heero had made it his business to read the journal Duo kept on the pad, to make certain that Duo wasn't undercover Oz. He had found the journal full of inane, emotional comments that didn't make sense to him. None of it pertained to anything important, as far as Heero could see.  
  
Duo's fingers tapped out the secret code. Solo. Heero filed that information. He had hacked the pad itself and not bothered with a code the first time. He watched as Duo frowned some more and made his entry. Heero followed the movement of his fingers on the pad and was able to figure out the message easily. Heero Yuy is an asshole! That was all. Duo closed the program and put the pad away with an air of satisfaction. He then rolled onto his back, put his hands behind his head languidly and settled himself to nap. The young man was worse than a cat when it came to sleeping, Heero thought, and just as strange and temperamental.  
  
Duo began to breathe heavily in sleep. Just like that, Heero thought, without even taking a moment to get a weapon and put it close to hand in case of a sudden attack. Heero had the sudden urge to do just that, attack Duo and see how he reacted. It was hard for Heero to understand how someone so carefree and disorganized could be the expert pilot Dr. J had made him out to be. It had to be an act, his happy go lucky, fun loving, foolish personality. Heero had known many killers in his life and all of them had shown the shadow of it in their eyes and in their attitudes. None had acted like Duo, as if he were nothing more than what he seemed, a young man in a private school with only exams and girls on his mind.  
  
Long and thin, Heero thought. Duo didn't look as if he had one muscle to his name. Little, long fingered hands, A pixie like face, pale skin that looked too soft for someone on the verge of being a full blown man. Even his feet were small, Heero thought, and that ridiculous, chestnut braid. What was the point of that? It seemed an insane conceit considering what they did, climbing in and out of Gundams, doing repairs on grinding machinery, squeezing in and out of space and flight suits, running out of fire fights, and a hundred other things that made a braid that long a deadly hazard. Why did he risk it? Did he want to look like a woman so badly?  
  
Heero frowned as he closed his laptop softly. He corrected himself. Duo, as small and as delicate as he looked, even with a long braid, didn't look like a woman. He certainly didn't act like one either. His shoulders were rather broad for someone so thin and his face had a faint curve to it that tipped the scale to male more than female. He also had a dominant, take charge personality, and Heero had found himself being led by the boy more than once, to his intense irritation. It couldn't be, Heero thought, that Duo wanted to look like a woman. The braid had some significance, he felt, as if it were a prize or some cultural tradition, though Heero couldn't recall that the melting pot of L2, Duo's home, had any traditions at all. It was a mystery and Heero wasn't comfortable with mysteries. Missions shouldn't have blind spots, even ones as small as why a young man sported an over three foot braid.  
  
Duo stirred and one of his hands slid down his body and rubbed at his crotch unconsciously, maybe relieving an itch or an uncomfortable position in his pants. He sighed and went deeper into sleep. Heero, silent witness, felt a prickling heat start somewhere in his groin. That delicate hand, pale against Duo's black pants, was cupped ever so slightly inward over what Heero knew to be underneath that fabric.  
  
Pain, it coursed through every nerve of Heero's body. He stiffened with a jerk of muscles, his jaw tightening. The pain bloomed until he saw white, hot light and then, it was gone, leaving Heero cold and angry. He glared at Duo, any reaction to what the boy was doing in his sleep, crushed and swept away. He stood and felt a need to hurt the one who had just, even unknowingly, hurt him. Heero controlled himself with an effort. He would settle for dislike instead, and maybe hate if it happened again, but he knew he couldn't compromise the mission by taking his revenge in any physical manner.   
  
Heero stood over the sleeping young man and thought of a hundred different ways to kill him in under a second. It satisfied some inner demon within Heero and he felt a flush of comfort and a sense of contentment as his reward.  
  
"Baka!" Heero said to the sleeping Duo derisively and then turned away to check his mission plan yet again.  
  
+  
  
Duo held out a comb to Heero. "Come on. Just run it through once. "  
  
Duo was dressed neatly in his school uniform, hair brushed until it was shinning and braided in a long tail down his back. His books were tucked under one arm and his slim body was blocking the doorway. Heero's compliance was the toll for passage.  
  
Heero blinked at the other pilot. He narrowed his blue eyes dangerously, but Duo continued to grin at him and hold out the comb. He had a gleam in his purple eyes that let Heero know that he was ready for a fight and ready to enjoy it.  
  
Heero considered violence, but then also considered the noise and attention that would bring them. With a jerk, he took the comb out of Duo's hand, leaving marks. As Duo hissed and flapped his damaged hand, Heero ran the comb through his wild thatch of hair.  
  
Finished, Heero tossed the comb back at Duo. Duo caught it neatly, eyes never leaving Heero's. With a flourish, he stood aside. "After you Yuy."  
  
Heero remained where he stood. He didn't let anyone get at his back. After a long pause, Duo gave an exaggerated sigh and went first, his long braid swinging back and forth jauntily over the backside of his school issue burgundy pants. They seemed far too tight for even someone as slim as Duo.  
  
"Why?" Heero asked.  
  
Duo didn't turn as they took a corridor out of the dorms and crossed the small open park towards the classrooms.  
  
"Why did I make you comb your hair?" Duo clarified with a long suffering air. "Maybe you're trying to immolate some sort of spoiled, rich kid, bad boy look, but I get embarrassed being seen with you. "  
  
Heero's brain worked on that and then spit it out again as unacceptable. "Your own appearance doesn't embarrass you?"  
  
"Ha, ha, Heero made a joke," Duo retorted, adding, "There's a big difference between being stylish and being a slob."  
  
"Is that why you grow your hair so long?" Heero asked, taking advantage of the opening to glean more information about the pilot of Deathscythe. "You wish to be stylish?"  
  
"Not wish, am!" Duo chuckled, and then more seriously. "No, it's not about that at all. It's something personal, so butt out." He paused and then said, retreating back to the original subject, "You stick out like a sore thumb, you know, trying to look so dangerous and mysterious. I thought combing your hair would help reduce some of that." Duo glanced back at Heero over his shoulder and made a face. "Didn't help much. There's something about you that just screams 'dangerous'. People look at me and just think I'm a fag or I'm fun loving and eccentric. They look at you and they wonder what you're up to."  
  
Heero digested that and couldn't deny the conclusion. It made him angry. He didn't like flaws. Duo was telling him that his very nature might jeopardize a mission and invite discovery. His appearance, which he had never given a second thought to, was a sudden liability.  
  
As they entered the general school populace, the hustle and bustle of other students and teachers going to their classes, Heero took note of the way people reacted to him. They moved out of his way, averted their eyes, looked nervous and sometimes scared, or followed him with their eyes with open curiosity. In sharp contrast, his partner, Duo, was greeted with friendly smiles, loud calls, and an effusive good will. Only a few passed with an ugly speculation about Duo's sexuality or an uncomfortable glare. None of the looks were suspicious or curious. Duo was accepted for what he was, a student and a young man with nothing to hide.  
  
As they moved through the day, sometimes in the same class, sometimes not, Heero continued to study Duo. Always the center of attention, yet not; Heero found it hard to explain the phenomenon that was Duo Maxwell. He was intelligent, yet he pretended not to be. He answered question wrong, apologized with a smile, and was forgiven by a smiling teacher. He joked and played the fool with the other students, but he also had an indefinable demeanor that stopped them short of actually getting close to him. He was everyone's friend, yet no one's friend. In short, he was the perfect undercover operative.  
  
In a crowded cafeteria, Duo walked up to where Heero was sitting and plopped down across the table from him. No one else had dared to get so close. Heero had been eating alone, a dark, morose, shadow among the thronging, chattering and laughing teenagers.  
  
Duo had his tray filled to capacity with every food on the menu and then some. There were three candy bars from the vending machine, a soda, and a bag of potato chips besides his more nutritious meal.   
  
Heero eyed Duo's small frame and frowned. His brain measured stomach capacity, fat storage ratios, and the time they were allotted to finish their meals. None of it computed into a digested meal.  
  
"You're going to vomit," Heero pronounced.  
  
Duo grinned as he began to eat. "You shouldn't underestimate the stretching capacity of an L2 street orphan's stomach," Duo whispered as he took a bite.  
  
Heero gave the room a quick glance out of the corners of his eyes. He saw some faces turn his way, but most of them were admiring looks given to Duo and the disturbingly curious looks thrown his way.  
  
"We shouldn't sit together," Heero said. "We-"  
  
Duo smirked as he swallowed. He licked his lips and then said, "We're in the same dorm room and we're new. People will expect us to stick together even if we don't look socially compatible. In another week, they'll think I'm having sex with you and they won't look twice when we go off campus together. " Duo winked broadly. "We'll have to do a little kissing and hugging, but I'm sure you can-"  
  
Heero felt a sharp pain as his body flushed red. He had formed a sudden, mental image of Duo kissing him. Before he could fully register it, and know how he felt about that image, the pain shattered it and brought him back to his training. He frowned and that frown had a deadly look to it. Duo's eyes took notice of that with a slight twitch that told Heero he had expected Heero to be angry and had, perhaps, been baiting him for just such a reaction.  
  
"Speechless!" Duo teased. "Well, at least you didn't punch me. I was only kidding Heero."  
  
Heero felt a new sensation at those words. He flushed red again and it wasn't in anger or embarrassment. This was something else. Heero hated it at once, but he couldn't dispel it with that hate. He found himself staring at Duo's widening grin and then looking down at his food. He began shoving his fork through it as if he needed to hide behind that action.  
  
"It's okay to be shy," Duo said softly. "Is that why you never say much?"  
  
Shy? Heero had heard people use the term. What did it mean? He had thought it was the same as being afraid, but Heero wasn't afraid, especially not of Duo. What was it then? He couldn't lift his eyes or reply to Duo and he felt helpless in this new emotion's grip. He found himself wishing for the pain to come and bring his mind back into order. Where was it? Why didn't it strike? Why was this emotion different from the other emotions that he had been taught were so undesirable?  
  
Duo put a candy bar on Heero's plate. "I think you're right, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Why don't you help me eat some of this? You can't grow on rice and chicken... that is chicken, isn't it? Why doesn't cafeteria food ever look like it's supposed to?"  
  
"Sugar is a poison," Heero grated, trying to being himself to order by pumping himself full of irritation.  
  
"And too many rice starches aren't?" Duo short back and then chuckled. "Loosen up, Heero."  
  
Heero stood up, forgetting his meal. "That gets a man killed," he replied stonily and then left his meal, and an open mouthed Duo, behind him to go to his next class early.  
  
Heero found his steps slowing as he reached the hallway and the quieter parts of the school. Duo had managed to get under his skin and rattle him. That could get a man killed too, he thought grimly. As long as Duo could get to him, throw him off balance, and make him feel strange emotions he had never felt before, the young man was a danger to him.  
  
Heero finished his classes, worked out at the gym, and then returned to the dorm room. He felt reluctant, knowing Duo would be there, and again that strange emotion surfaced. Why did Duo Maxwell make him feel shy, as if he were inferior somehow or afraid that Duo would find yet another flaw in him? Perhaps that was all it was, Heero thought, a reluctant fear of having Duo find yet another crack in the shell of his perfection.  
  
When Heero entered the dorm room, he found Duo lying on his belly on his bed, pencil stuck between his teeth and a paper half filled with writing on one side of an open book. He was wearing a loose, white cotton shirt and a very thin pair of shorts, his long, slim legs showing two tattoos and an ugly scar along their backs. One tattoo was crude, as if done by a child. It said Solo's. The other was more sophisticated. It was a circle of numbers and it looked as if it had been burned on. Heero recognized it. Some Oz supply depots used brands on shipping boxes. Each brand seared a tracking number identifying the contents and the owner, be it a base or a person. Heero memorized the numbers to check on later.  
  
Duo looked up and smiled at Heero. His shorts rose up on one hip as he propped himself up on his elbows. He wasn't wearing any underwear, Heero realized, and the hip that was revealed was rounded and smooth.  
  
"Took you long enough to get back," Duo said. "Stop at the gym?"  
  
Heero put a hand to his head as the welcoming pain blinded him. That motion was his only outward indication. The pain rose and washed away all thoughts of Duo's rounded ass as Heero concentrated on breathing and keeping his pulse steady. Returning to a controlled state was the only thing that stopped the pain. When he finally achieved it, and the pain receded, it was like a cord snapping. Heero went into motion, going into the bathroom and closing the door.  
  
Heero turned on the shower so that Duo would not become suspicious and ask questions. He undressed and composed himself on the bathroom floor, cross legged and eyes closed. Very quickly, Heero checked his control over every part of his body. Everything checked out. He was still in perfect control. Why then, had looking at Duo brought the pain? Heero was confused and that confusion was maddening to him. He had to know what was happening to him and why. Mysteries were unacceptable to him.  
  
Heero showered and dried off. He dressed carefully, taking a deliberate amount of time to compose himself and to use every technique in his impressive arsenal to make himself proof against any more reactions to Duo Maxwell. When he felt that he was ready, he opened the bathroom door, steam rolling out into the main dorm room, and turned towards Duo's bed as if he were bracing for a full, enemy assault.  
  
Duo was gone, only the impression of his body was left on the bed and a closed book with the chewed pencil marking a page. There was a note on the small table by the door.  
  
'Gym was a good idea', the note read, 'Think I'll go work out and do some flirting with some student bodies. Have to have some fun before the real work begins.'  
  
Heero went at once to Duo's journal. He used the password, found that it had been changed, and hacked into it in mere moments. The last entry Duo had made was alone on that day's page. Heero felt the prickle of nerves and sharp shock as he read the entry.   
  
'You only have to ask'


	2. Hormonal

There was a tension between Duo and himself, Heero felt, too many things unspoken hanging heavy in the air. Heaviest of all was Heero's refusal to acknowledge that he had read Duo's journal and that he had been sloppy enough to alert Duo to the fact. Duo's knowing smirk, when he returned from the gym, let Heero know that he wasn't fooling the young man this time either.  
  
Choosing to ignore Duo, Heero concentrated on his homework. He was sitting at the small table, his laptop open and his fingers busily dancing over the keys using the rapid, two finger method. The hairs on his neck prickled when Duo, without warning, suddenly leaned close to his ear. He smelled strongly of sweat and he was pulling off a white bandanna and wiping his face with it.  
  
"Make some mistakes," Duo told him. "We're supposed to be learning this stuff, remember?"  
  
Heero sat stiffly, Duo's face very close to his own. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Duo's hair, spiky with perspiration, and his large, clear, amethyst eyes, almost glowing like a cat's in the light of the laptop screen. Duo swiveled those eyes to regard Heero. His ever present smile grew wider. He knew Heero was looking at him while pretending to ignore him.  
  
Heero stood up, fists clenched. He was angry, ready to explode, but he didn't know what to say, or what, exactly, was making him so angry. The look on his face made Duo wary and Duo backed up a few steps, giving himself enough room to defend himself if he needed to.  
  
Duo regarded Heero for a long, tense moment and then he said, surprising Heero, "Sorry, Heero. I'm just used to being... Well, it's hard to explain without putting myself down, but, hey, I grew up on L2. Being sneaky and playing the con was bread and butter there if you wanted to survive. I know a lot about manipulating people, making myself appear to be something I'm not. Oz ran L2 with an iron fist. They made survival a game of wits and I, " He recaptured his grin, "I was the champion of the game. No one was slicker than the Kid at conning Oz soldiers out of supplies, out of information, and out of being taken by the sweepers to the institutions for the destitute. Trust me, that wasn't a charitable organization. It was more like a death camp for the poor and the troublemakers."  
  
The Kid. The name tattooed on Duo's leg. Heero filed that slip of the tongue, if slip it was, along with the other information he had just been given. It all still had to be confirmed, of course, Heero thought. A person who admitted to being the champion of the con game might very likely be running yet another con.  
  
"I was slicker than grease at getting away from them," Duo was saying proudly. "Still am."  
  
"Not always," Heero replied as he turned off his computer and shut it. His anger was suddenly cooling as he found a sudden weapon that Duo himself had handed to him. "You have an Oz tracking number on your leg."  
  
Duo's face went very ugly. Heero looked up in time to see it before it smoothed out into a pleasant grin again. A mask, Heero realized. A cover. An act. A con. Duo said very calmly and precisely. "Don't go there, Yuy. Ever."  
  
Heero brushed that off. He felt immensely better for having found a flaw in Duo, an indication that he wasn't as capable or as confident as he pretended. "The first part of our mission must be implemented tomorrow night," Heero told him, "We'll leave the campus separately with explanations for our absence submitted ahead of time. Finish your school work before then. Everything must be in order so that our absence doesn't draw suspicion."  
  
Duo began to strip off his sweat soaked clothes as he replied, "Worry about yourself, Yuy. You're the one who keeps drawing suspicion."  
  
Duo trailed clothes as he walked into the bathroom. As the last pieces, his black socks, hit the floor, and Duo hopped and balanced from one foot to the other to accomplish the feat without stopping, Heero was given a full view of a very slim body, angular hips, a rounded ass, and a clear look between Duo's legs. As Duo turned to shut the door behind him, Heero was given an almost full frontal view of Duo Maxwell hidden only by a glittering gold cross on his breast.  
  
Heero only had time to wonder why Duo didn't have any hair below his navel, a warmth spreading below his own, before pain lashed him like a whip. It was like molten lava, electrocution, blinding, intolerable pain that was worse than anything Heero had ever felt before. He bowed under it, hissed and panted, clutching at his forehead.  
  
"Is this the crap they give us for soap and shampoo?" Duo's voice swore through the door. "Why don't they just whip up a vat of lye?" The rest of his grumbling was drowned out by the shower turning on.  
  
Heero fell to his knees. He shut off all sensations and all thoughts of Duo. He filled his mind, instead, with his mission, running over timetables and blueprints with the cold efficiency of a computer. The pain lessened reluctantly and then faded, leaving him white and shaking.  
  
Heero tore himself off of the floor and stood, with hands balled into fists, staring at the door of the bathroom. He could have happily murdered Duo just then if the young man had been standing in front of him. That wash of emotion was enough to clear his head completely and he felt a surge of contentment as a reward. It whispered to him, Duo was unimportant except where he pertained to the mission. His body was important only because it had to be strong enough to carry out that mission. All other considerations had to be eliminated. Duo was a tool, nothing more, nothing less.  
  
When Duo stepped out of the bathroom and began to dress, Heero was composed again and at his laptop, back turned firmly away. He heard Duo pause and stand quietly. He could feel Duo's eyes on his back.  
  
"Look, man," Duo said at last. "Let's not get off on the wrong foot, k? We're partners. Let's get along and finish the job. I won't stick my nose in your business and you'll stop snooping around in mine, agreed?"  
  
"No," Heero replied.  
  
"No?" Duo echoed. Heero could imagine Duo scratching his head, perplexed.  
  
"I don't know anything about you," Heero elaborated. "I don't like unknown factors. I'll follow orders and be your partner, but I will continue to investigate and make certain of you. If I discover that you are an Oz operative or a counter terrorists, I will eliminate you."  
  
"So," Duo replied irritably. "Does that mean you'll follow me around too?"  
  
"If it becomes necessary, yes."  
  
"Then I hope you aren't prudish," Duo laughed grimly. "Because I'm going out to try and fuck someone I met at the gym. You may get an eye full."  
  
Heero did turn then, control complete. Duo was dressed all in black and his hair was braided neatly down his back. He looked grimly at Heero from under his long chestnut bangs and his eyes were glittering dangerously, lacking in the humor his voice was portraying.  
  
"You should be studying the mission," Heero said, not understanding. "Fraternizing with the civilians of this school endangers our cover and distracts you from our mission priorities."  
  
"You're a virgin, aren't you?" Duo asked with a grin, "or one of those uptight people who can't get their head around the fact that people have sex?" He sunk his hands into his pockets and cocked his head sideways at Heero impishly. "I may be a Gundam pilot and a terrorist, Heero, but I'm also a teenager jacked up on hormones. Maybe you can jerk off and keep yourself happy with endless streams of mission parameters, but I need to fuck someone besides my right hand or I'll lose it." He smirked. "Don't worry. I picked a nice quiet guy who won't give me any trouble. He doesn't want anything but a quick suck or a bang too. Either way, it should take all of three minutes. Not long enough to jeopardize anything, even my time. I'll be back memorizing mindless streams of data before you know it."  
  
Heero didn't reply. He wasn't sure what he could say. They weren't in a regular military. He wasn't Duo's commander. Dr. J. had given him an order to allow this man on his mission as an expert in bomb making, stealth, and computer hacking. So far, Heero had yet to see a demonstration of any of those abilities. The only demonstration Heero had seen so far, was of Duo's ability to play at being something he wasn't, a regular teenager going to school.  
  
"If this mission doesn't succeed, and it is because of your lack of preparation-," Heero began, but Duo cut him off.  
  
"I know! I know! You'll kill me, right?" Duo chuckled and his humor seemed genuine now. "I was trained by the best, Heero," He said as he headed for the door. "I was trained by life on L2. I won't disappoint you."  
  
Duo paused at the door. He smiled very wide, like a cat with cream as he gave a parting shot over his shoulder, "Have fun."  
  
Heero scowled, wondering at the significance of that remark. As soon as Duo was well away, Heero sat at his laptop and hacked into the school security camera system. At once, he picked up Duo walking briskly through the halls with his hands in his pockets, braid swinging behind him. He met another young man at the end of the row of dorms, a tall, thin, plain looking person with a thatch of black hair and a wide, worshiping look in his dark eyes. Duo motioned to him and the young man followed him out of the building like an eager puppy.  
  
That Duo was homosexual didn't bother Heero. Sexual orientation, and sex for that matter, were of no importance to him. Sex, love, friendship... they were all things reserved for people who weren't soldiers, who hadn't given their life to a cause. That Duo was indulging himself in the behavior that Heero had denied himself, indicated to Heero a lack of dedication to the cause and a glaring weakness. Heero was forced to put Duo into a category he wasn't comfortable with, one of uncertain loyalties.  
  
The cameras picked up Duo and the young man walking towards a small campus park. There was a bench. Duo sat on top of the back of it, feet on the seat, and jacket across his knees.  
  
The young man talked nervously, rubbing hands against his thighs and looking around as if afraid of discovery. Heero could see that Duo was replying, calm and collected. At last, the young man nodded and then kneeled in front of Duo.  
  
The darkness was almost complete, only a lamp, set high on a post, giving long shadows to everything. The young man was hidden by Duo's coat. Duo's hands gripped the bench top hard and his chin tilted back, eyes closed and a large grin plastered on his face. Heero could just make out some movement of his hips.  
  
Heero counted the minutes. At least five passed before Duo jerked and leaned forward. The young man stood up, wiping off his mouth. Duo gave him a smile and then they were rearranging their clothes and standing up. The young man looked embarrassed. Duo was reassuring him of something and shrugging. Heero read his lips.  
  
"Next time, " Duo was saying, "You'll make it until I actually do something to you." And then he laughed and the young man nervously laughed too, still embarrassed.  
  
They walked back towards the dorms and Heero turned off the laptop. He sat for several long moments, analyzing what he had just seen. It hadn't been titillating for him. It had made him angry and judgmental. It was those emotions he was analyzing. Neither of them seemed called for. Duo had been discrete, just as he had promised. The young man who had serviced him did seem quiet and easily manipulated. It had taken two minutes longer than promised, but Heero felt that Duo hadn't been serious about that time table. He took longer to eat a meal, Heero thought.  
  
Duo was generating far too many new and disturbing emotions in him, Heero thought, and knew it was the young man's very nature that was causing it. Heero had only dealt with Duo and the other pilots briefly. He was a loner in life and on missions, liking it that way, wishing nothing more than to give his life without question to the cause and to do it perfectly. Forced into a room with a man who seemed his complete opposite, it was natural that he would be off balance and confused by Duo's rough and irreverent style.  
  
Heero worried about the mission. He went over it in his mind once more, paying particular attention to Duo's role in it. He tried to imagine Duo going through the mission parameters with the exacting perfecting it required. Heero couldn't match the image with the scenario of mission completed.  
  
The door opened. Duo stepped into the room and then stopped, eyebrows raised on his cheerful face as he saw Heero standing at the center of the room not looking at anything, but deep in thought. His amethyst eyes studied Heero, looking for some clue as to Heero's mood. When he didn't find any, he opted for boldness. He sauntered past Heero confidently, sat on the bed, and then pulled out his own laptop to study the mission.  
  
"I'll pretend to be sick in the morning," Duo said as he stared at the screen of the computer. "Stomach flue, I think. It will get me out of classes and I can spend the day making the bombs. He pointed to the blueprint of the Oz installation on his computer screen. "This section here has very strong supports. I'm going to need a lot of firepower. It'll be dicey carrying around charges like that. I'll have to be quick, but careful."  
  
Heero had already calculated the time it would take to make the bombs and the extra time needed to move carefully with them. He nodded understanding when he didn't really understand at all. The Duo sitting on his single bed before him, going over the mission with the steady, serious, informed air of a man twice his age wasn't the Duo who had left him a scant twenty minutes before to have another young man kneel between his legs to have sex. This Duo seemed the epitome of professionalism.  
  
"Well?" Duo prompted with a small, smile that told Heero that he knew precisely what he was thinking.  
  
Duo was extremely perceptive, Heero thought. Duo was picking up cues from Heero that revealed his thoughts and intentions so clearly that Duo might as well have been mind reading him. It made Heero feel vulnerable in a way he hadn't felt since he had been very young and in training. Heero had thought his defenses impenetrable, his cold, passionless stare and attitude a wall between himself and other people that no one could breech. Duo was making a mockery of it, passing through it as if it had never existed, laying Heero bare to his scrutiny as if Duo were strip searching him.  
  
Again, Heero felt angry. That anger was rewarded by a feeling of deeper contentment. He should be angry at other people, that contentment told him. He should resent and hate people when they appeared to be better than he was. It was his duty to excel, to be the best, to be perfect. He needed to be all of those things if he was going to win the war. He couldn't let Duo confuse him and make him think otherwise. He couldn't let Duo rattle him with his clever perceptions and observations.  
  
Heero looked down at Duo and suddenly saw something in those large, oddly colored eyes; an edge, a hardness, a clever glint that didn't match the pleasant smile on Duo's face. Heero saw calculation there and that was something he understood completely. It was almost a relief to find it. Safe ground to climb onto in the maelstrom of uncertainty Duo had tried to drown him in. That look in Duo's eyes told Heero that Duo wasn't what he seemed. He wasn't a teenager able to be happy, to mix pleasure with mission, to live a normal life while secretly planting bombs and killing whole sale. That glint of hardness was the same as the one in Heero's eyes. It was the hallmark of a mind that was planning, thinking death and destruction, calculating how to get the upper hand over an enemy.  
  
An enemy, Heero thought grimly, yes, everyone was a threat, a potential enemy. Heero, for the first time, began to have a little more confidence that Dr. J had made the right decision in including Duo in the mission. It wasn't until that moment that he had understood his real reluctance where Duo was concerned. His fear, he realized, had been that Duo wasn't cold blooded or dedicated enough to complete the mission, that he didn't have the proper personality of a soldier, that he wouldn't be able to kill when it was called for. Now, Heero didn't have any doubt of it at all.  
  
"Acceptable," was all Heero said at last in reply to Duo, but that one word said volumes.


	3. Sky High

"Ready?" Heero asked as he checked his watch.  
  
Duo hefted his pack and nodded. "Ready."  
  
Heero gave Duo a steady look. The young man was dressed in an Oz uniform, his braid tucked underneath the collar. Some attempt had been made to tame his wild, chestnut bangs under his pill box uniform hat. Heero was critical of his success.  
  
"You look like walking insubordination," Heero growled. "Someone will stop you."  
  
Duo quirked a smile. He touched his back pack full of bombs. "I'm wearing the insignia of a mechanic and I look like I've been working hard. They won't expect me to be spit and polish, Heero. They would be more suspicious if I was."  
  
"Hn." Heero growled back. He checked his watch yet again for the thousandth time. "You have exactly-"  
  
"Forty five minutes to hack the computer," Duo sighed patiently, "Thirty five minutes and forty seconds to lay the charges. Twenty minutes to get the Hell out before you blow them."  
  
Heero nodded. "With the computers and the remote systems bugged, we can return and move at will to sabotage other parts of the complex later."  
  
Duo frowned. "I think it would be a lot easier to just wade in with our Gundams and slice and dice it all up. That place is going to be swarming with troops once we start blowing things up."  
  
Heero couldn't help the gleam in his eyes when he replied, "The charges are a diversion to distract from the real goal, hacking the computers. Once I have the computer codes, I can track Oz movements and shipments and return to destroy and disrupt their operations. "  
  
"A beam cannon fired up their asses would disrupt them too," Duo growled. "I don't like allowing them to continue operations for any reason." He shot a look at Heero, "And what's with this 'I' business? We're in this operation for the long haul. That's what Doctor G told me."  
  
Heero kept his face blank.  
  
"What's going on, Yuy?" Duo demanded as he shifted the weight of the pack on his shoulders. He said angrily, "If you don't think that I'm going to make it out of there, just say so." He stiffened as an ugly notion occurred to him. He held out his hand. "Give me the detonator."  
  
"No."  
  
Duo put down his bombs. He brushed his hands together as if taking off dirt. "See ya later. I'm getting Deathscythe and carving this place up. I'm not going to be your stooge. I'm not stupid enough to let you blow me up along with the bombs."  
  
"That wasn't my intention," Heero argued, growing angry.  
  
"You're keeping secrets," Duo replied with narrowed eyes, "and you're not very good at it. We had a plan and you've just changed it. I don't like that, not when my life is riding on pulling this off perfectly."  
  
Heero held up the detonator. Duo froze. "You will pick up the bombs and complete the mission," Heero told him coldly, feeling a surge of comfort in his brain; a reward for making Duo afraid, for being willing to complete the mission at any cost. "If you refuse again, I will blow us both up. I won't accept failure."  
  
"What's the difference between being blown up here or in there?" Duo asked with a fearful glitter in his purple eyes. "I'll be dead either way."  
  
"If you go in there, you'll be able to take some of Oz with you," Heero replied simply.  
  
The fear was still there, but it was now being overlaid by steel nerve as Duo said, "If that's what you're going to do, Yuy, at least wait until I plant the bombs where they're supposed to be. I want to do as much damage as possible." Those words were said with a fierce edge, the tone of someone who ached with all of their being for revenge.  
  
"I don't make promises," Heero replied without compassion. "I'll blow the bombs at the first sign that you're in trouble."  
  
Duo took off his communicator and crushed it under his heel. He grinned at Heero. "Now we don't have radio contact. You'll have to wait until my time is up."  
  
Heero's jaw worked as he ground his teeth together and then he warned, "If you compromise this mission-"  
  
Duo laughed, short and sharp. "You'll kill me? You're an idiot, you know that, man? You're not going to win this war single handed. You're going to have to trust me."  
  
"I don't trust anyone. I rely only on myself," Heero replied.  
  
"I'm so surprised," Duo shot back sarcastically.  
  
Heero glanced at his watch. "You've wasted two minutes of your time."  
  
Duo grabbed up his pack anxiously. "Shit!" he exclaimed and disappeared into the darkness around the Oz installation without another word.  
  
Heero stared after him and fingered the detonator. Duo's bravado in the face of death, his acceptance of a possible suicide mission, and his flippant manner were generating an odd feeling in Heero. It was respect foremost, yet there was something else underlying that. Heero analyzed it, dissected it, and felt somewhat uncomfortable with the conclusion he drew; that working with Duo might not be such a bad thing.... if Duo survived the mission, of course.  
  
+  
  
Duo walked boldly down the halls, his fake ID flapping on his chest and a low whistle on his lips. He smiled engagingly at everyone who passed, flirted with the women, winked at the men who were clearly interested, and didn't hesitate to look confused and new at his job. He even asked directions to various places just to cement the impression. Once he reached the correct section of the base, he switched IDs and changed his performance. Now he was a computer geek, confused still, but less flirty and more intelligent. As he entered the computer complex of the base, no one looked at him twice.  
  
Duo felt contempt for Oz arrogance. They were so sure that no one would dare just walk in, that security was at a minimum. The one guard was lounging against a wall and eating a sandwich. He didn't even look up as Duo passed him with a murmured, "Evening."  
  
Finding a terminal away from the few men and women that were working late, Duo settled and began hacking. Numbers flickered madly over the screen as his fingers flew over the keys. Security codes were entered by such and such. Going into such and such's files, Duo read that the man had five very nice children. It was ridiculously easy to figure out that his security protocols all started with one of their names. The rest was random numbers and Duo inserted the program that would search every possible combination in nanoseconds. As it found each one, Duo moved deeper and deeper into the system. Finally, he reached the downloading protocols for top secret files. Duo placed the bug that would allow Heero to access the files any time and any where from his laptop.  
  
"You're new," a female voice said behind Duo.  
  
Duo didn't stiffen or look startled. He smiled and didn't attempt to conceal what he was doing. To do so would have only brought attention to it. Instead, Duo turned and looked up at a very leggy, blonde woman in a tight fitting, short skirted uniform. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and her eyes were huge and as blue as Heero's. Duo frowned inwardly at the slip. Why was he comparing anything to Heero's eyes?  
  
The woman smiled in return and her lips were very luscious looking, Duo thought, as she leaned close and peered at his badge. The top buttons of her uniform coat were undone. Duo had a nice view of soft, rounded breasts and just the hint of nipples. She wasn't wearing a bra. Duo preferred men, but he could appreciate a beautiful woman too and he hadn't been above bedding one or two when the mood struck him. At that moment, he had the distinct urge to reach into her coat and see just how soft those breasts were, yet, at the same time, he was thinking about the glimpse of Heero's nipples he had seen once and wondering how they compared to the ones right in front of his face.  
  
Stupid, Duo! He thought to himself. Get it together and stop thinking about iron man Yuy! Bringing himself to order, Duo let his amethyst, killer eyes go sensual as he replied, "Yeah, I'm new. I'm here just for a few days to update some files. Classified, you know, so..."  
  
The woman nodded and took a step back. "Of course. I shouldn't be looking at them, then." She gave Duo a slow once over. "Later, maybe, we can get together and I can show you around?"  
  
Duo stood up and closed the space between them. He reached out a hand and fiddled with one of the woman's gold buttons, looking down into her cleavage with a clear, interested expression as he said sexily, "I would like that very much, Ms. ...."  
  
"Tanya Reid," she replied and Duo saw her nipples harden. She flushed and her eyes looked liquid as she said. "I'm in the directory."  
  
Duo lowered his hand from her button and let it trail over one of her hard nipples. She shivered. "They're going to be keeping me very busy," Duo replied, "but... I will try to make the time."  
  
Time. Time was running out, Duo thought, as he played his role of romancer to the hilt. When the woman finally went away, satisfied, and he was seated at the computer again, he had sweat trickling down into his collar. He had now wasted four precious minutes. Still, Duo took the time to leave some false entries to mislead his true intent. After he blew part of the base, he was sure the woman would report seeing a new soldier looking at secure information, especially after he failed to show for his date with her.  
  
Mission complete, at least in that respect, Duo thought, as he finished his hacking. He casually picked up a coffee cup, looked dolefully into it's emptiness, and then made a show of looking for a coffee maker. Knowing that there wasn't any in that section, he looked irritated, hefted his pack, and pretended to go in search of one.  
  
Duo winked at the guard who was now watching him with bored curiosity. Duo grimaced as if in embarrassment as he jiggled the empty cup. He said softly, conspiratorially, "I'm sneaking off to find some java and, uhm, have a little private time, if you know what I mean?" He patted his pack as if it contained something naughty. "Cover for me, okay?" Duo begged.  
  
"Yes, sir," the guard replied with a bland expression, but Duo heard the disgust in his voice.  
  
"Thanks, man!" Duo said in not so feigned relief and moved past him and out of the door. He checked his watch, swore silently to himself, and hurried his steps to his next destination. As he walked, he switched his badge and changed his uniform coat into one he pulled from his pack, that of a lower grade engineer. Confuse the story, Duo thought with an inward chuckle. The intruder was going to be so many different people by the time he set the bombs, that a clear description of him was going to be impossible.  
  
Development and research, Duo read over the metal doors as he entered the huge hanger, and attached offices, unchallenged among a group of other late night shift workers. He even joked with one, who didn't say much, only frowned and tried not to let on that he didn't know who Duo was. Duo played on that embarrassment, talking to the man as if they had been working together for weeks.  
  
As they made their way towards the offices, another young man leaned close to the one Duo was talking to and asked, "How's the baby?"  
  
The man he was talking to smiled lopsidedly and dug a picture out of his wallet. He proudly showed off his newborn son and his smiling wife. "Looks like his old man already," the man said. "Ryan's healthy and he laughs already. Me and Monica couldn't be happier."  
  
"That's great!" the other man beamed and clapped him on the back.  
  
Duo dropped back, all smiles and good nature suddenly snuffed out. He was Shinigami, death, and he was about to kill all of those unsuspecting men walking ahead of him. Ryan wasn't going to see his father ever again. Monica was about to become a widow. Shinigami was about to take them all into his embrace and crush the life out of them.  
  
Duo went numb and he welcomed it. The scar and the brand on his lower leg twinged, trying to remind him why he was there, to get revenge, to make them pay, to stop Oz from hurting other people as they had hurt him. Ryan's father, Monica's husband, was designing engines of death to enslave the people of Earth and Outer Space. He wasn't pure. He wasn't without blame. He knew what he was doing. He knew that his job might ask for the ultimate sacrifice. He was a soldier. Soldiers died. That evening, Duo was going to be the one to kill them.  
  
Duo broke away as the other men were splitting up to go to their work stations. He clung to the shadows and became one with them as he planted his bombs, lithe body reaching and bending to find perfect hiding spots that were still open enough to do great damage. When he planted a bomb outside of an office, one where the blueprints were kept, Duo heard the voice of Ryan's father. He flinched, steeled his nerves, and finished the job.  
  
"May God have mercy on you," Duo said softly, "and me, though I know He won't." He clutched at his gold cross and hurried to escape the coming destruction, trying to get the picture of a smiling woman and a newborn baby out of his head.  
  
The bombs blew before he reached Heero. When he came out of the darkness to let the fires of the burning complex show his presence, Heero was staring at the base with the detonator in one hand and his watch cocked towards his face as if he had forgotten to move and lower it, all of his attention on.... what? Duo wondered. What did Heero Yuy care more about? Was he looking to see how much destruction there was or was he searching for a certain braided pilot?  
  
"Hey," Duo said unnecessarily, because he was suddenly almost eating the barrel of Heero's gun. Heero's eyes were glittering, the reflection of flames licking over the pupils; the eyes of a killer. He recognized Duo in the next breath and then he simply grunted without apologizing and lowered his weapon.  
  
Duo found a smile, wide and manic. "Thanks for padding the parameters by a few, Yuy. You're not such a bad guy after all."  
  
Heero caught at Duo's wrist and looked at Duo's watch. He let it go before Duo could say anything. He shrugged. "Your watch is fast. I didn't pad the time."  
  
Duo blinked, "Oh," he replied, scratching his head in consternation. He reclaimed his smile with an effort. Turning on his heel as he began to leave the area, he said, chuckling darkly , "I stand corrected."  
  
+  
  
"Good mission," Duo said with a yawn. Back at the school dorm, reaction from an adrenalin high was making him feel ready to pass out on the floor, but Duo forced himself to pick up a towel and make his way towards the bathroom. He could feel the edges of hysteria beginning to take hold, his hands and legs beginning to tremble ever so slightly. He didn't want to let Heero see his vulnerability. A loud shower would help to cover up any sounds until he had worked the self loathing, the guilt, and the tension of the mission out of his system.  
  
Heero was at his laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard as he checked the access codes that had cost so many lives. He was nodding and smiling. A smiling Heero Yuy wasn't pleasant, Duo thought, he looked like some imp from Hell with his dark blue eyes and his thatch of wild dark hair. Duo supposed it was because the expression wasn't that of a normally happy man. It was more the uncontrollable reaction to an overwhelming feeling of self satisfaction. Duo took that self satisfaction as an indication of 'mission successful'.  
  
Duo shut and locked the bathroom door. Turning on the shower, he made the water hot enough to steam. The droplets of water, pounding on the tile floor of the shower enclosure, gave him welcome white noise. Undressing, he tossed his clothes into a corner in a black, grimy pile and then stepped into the shower.  
  
Duo sank to his knees on the tile as he unwound his hair from his braid. Raking his hands through it to separate the long strands, he welcomed the sharp pain. It was only the beginning of his self punishment.  
  
Bending over himself Duo dug his fingers into his upper arms and squeezed until his nails broke skin and bruises began to form. He kept squeezing as the hot water burned the skin of his back, not hot enough to blister, but hot enough to make the skin as red and as outraged as a sunburn. When the pain reached it's pinnacle, Duo began to cry and shake under an onslaught of grief and guilt. He let it wash over him like the hot water and consume him utterly.  
  
By the time the water ran cold, Duo was rising, stiff and wincing with pain, but calm and purged. He touched the scar and the brand on his lower leg, fingered it, and caressed it as he reaffirmed to himself the reason for the deaths he had just caused, the reason for the fight, the reason for his need for revenge. Switching to his other leg, he touched the tattoo that said, 'Solo n' Kid' and remembered the loving hand that had put it there.  
  
"Duo's back in business," Duo whispered with a determined smile.  
  
Heero stared at the closed bathroom door. The water had been running for a very long time. His keen ears, filtering out the sound of the shower, had picked up the definite sounds of Duo crying. He should have been finishing his mission report, Heero thought, testing his codes, planning the next attack on the installation. Instead, Heero simply sat and kept staring, waiting for Duo to reemerge.  
  
When Duo finally opened the door and stepped out, he was walking stiffly, a smile on his face and his easy going expression firmly in place. When he dropped his towel to dress in a pair of shorts and a loose cotton shirt, both black, Heero saw the red skin of Duo's back and the virulent bruises and nails marks on his upper arms. Heero noted the pattern and the position of the marks. Self inflicted, he determined, and superficial, meant more to cause pain than any real injury.  
  
Heero should have dismissed it from his mind then. Something like that wasn't going to hamper Duo's efficiency in the upcoming missions. As long as that was true, how he coped with the stress of the war was his own business. Yet Heero kept staring, kept ignoring the glowing screen and his mission report. Instead, he watched as Duo gingerly stretched out on his stomach on his bed, face snuggling into his pillow as he sleepily yawned. He looked very young just then, a little boy who had just completed a mission a much older man would have found daunting.  
  
"Basketball tomorrow for sure," Duo mumbled around his pillow. "It supposed to be a nice day. Can't wait...," Duo trailed off and then began breathing deeply in sleep.  
  
Heero was confused at the odd subject. What had made Duo think of basketball after risking his life sabotaging an Oz installation and then hurting himself in the bathroom? Was it a grasp at a delusion of normalcy? An attempt to retreat into the fantasy of actually being an innocent school boy? Duo's thought processes were a mystery to Heero. It made him that much more keen to find out about the pilot of Deathscythe, the self proclaimed Shinigami. Heero was the type of personality who needed things and individuals in neat, non surprising boxes. It bothered him that Duo refused to fit into one, that he refused to be analyzed and understood.  
  
Heero's eyes lit on the shipping brand on Duo's leg. He memorized the numbers and then turned to his computer. He had the perfect resource now for finding out what he needed to know about that brand. The security codes, that Duo had risked his life for, were now going to be the instrument for betraying his secrets to Heero.  
  
Heero gained access to the Oz computer system and typed in the tracking code. He waited with infinite patience as the remote system searched its numerous files. Behind him, Duo began to snore softly. Heero glanced at him briefly and then back at the computer.  
  
"Kuso!" Heero exclaimed as he slammed his hand on the disconnect with lightning speed. A screen had popped up warning of Heero's security breech. The remote system was automatically searching the net for who ever had hacked into it. As the screen went blank, the last thing Heero saw was a message. The computer was changing it's security codes automatically. Heero was now locked out.  
  
Mission: a failure.  
  
The pain was a hot poker between Heero's eyes. The word, 'failure', was a cry that surrounded him inside and out, a mental torture that he couldn't escape. He thrashed, knocking over table and laptop, and clawed at his head, trying to stop the pain, dig it out somehow, any way he could.  
  
The pain rose inexorably. It was every nerve scraped raw and a thousand wounds dipped in salt all rolled into one. It caused Heero to fall to the floor, every muscle twitching, eyes rolling back into his head, and teeth barred in a grimace of agony. Finally, his mind couldn't take it any longer. He passed out with the word 'failure' still ringing in his tortured mind.


	4. True Shinigami

"Wake up!" A hard hand shook at Heero. "Stupid bastard! Wake up! Crap! Too late! You better appreciate this you, freakin' asshole!" and then silence.  
  
Heero tried to crawl out of the darkness, but it held him in tight claws and didn't want to let go. The more distant sound of someone in pain and loud, inventive cursing came to his confused ears. It pricked at memory. The voice should have been his, screaming, sobbing, shouting at his tormentors to stop as they tried to force him into the mold of the perfect soldier.  
  
Heero's head was throbbing as if it were being blown apart from the inside in slow motion. His every nerve and muscle was on fire. After effects of convulsion, a small, coherent part of his mind analyzed, ignore it and become conscious. It was an order that Heero knew he couldn't refuse. The pain would come again if he did, worse this time. It was always worse when he tried to rebel against it, tried to hide in unconsciousness.  
  
Heero pried his eyes open. He mentally shut off as many nerves as he could manage, enough to allow himself to slowly sit up and begin to try and figure out why he was outside, in the false light of dawn, and covered by old leaves. A stray thought occurred to him, that Duo had tried to bury him alive in revenge for failing the mission, and then he was thinking more clearly, realizing that someone, probably Duo, had tried to hide him.  
  
"Hey guys! Come on!" Duo panted through groans of pain. "Leave enough for the bosses to interrogate, k?"  
  
Heero swiveled his head sharply and found his gun in its' holster at his lower back. He drew it and peered through bushes cautiously. At once, he spotted Duo sprawled on the ground. He was covered in mud and leaves, his braid held in one Oz soldier's hand while another kept a foot on his back, holding him down. A third, stood back, holding a gun in case of trouble. Heero sorted through likely scenarios, determining quickly that Duo had probably tried to quietly eliminate one or more of the soldiers and that a third must have come up unnoticed and captured him.  
  
"Interrogation?" the one holding Duo's braid snarled. "This is an execution, little terrorist! We followed the computer hack all the way to your dorm. We found bomb making residue. That's all the proof we need."  
  
"Oh, proof!" Duo made a rude noise, blood dribbled out of his mouth along with it. He wiped at the blood with a shaking hand. "Sure, I did it! A five year old could have figured that out. What you can't figure out is who I'm working for or what my ultimate plan was. You'll have to take me back to head quarters and torture that out of me."  
  
"You're full of advice," the one with the foot in Duo's back snarled and ground his boot down harder. "We're not taking advice today. We came for revenge!"  
  
"Funny," Duo gasped, trying to get in air. "That's why I blew up your installation!"  
  
The one holding Duo's braid jerked hard on it, dragging Duo towards him and out from under the foot of the other man. He then swung a booted foot into Duo repeatedly and viciously. "Shut up and die.... slowly," he said to Duo.  
  
The man with the gun laughed and relaxed, thinking the situation was well under control. That was his last mistake. Heero came up behind him, grabbed him around the head, and twisted sharply. There was a sickening pop and the man fell twitching with a broken neck.  
  
Unnoticed, the two men were now taking turns at Duo. Duo was sobbing and making helpless sounds like a small puppy, but he wasn't curling up to avoid the blows. Instead, he threw the dice and gambled on his life. He knew he was going to die under those kicking boots and he also knew he would probably die from a bullet from the soldier with the gun. Probably was better than absolutely. Duo gave up his pretense of helplessness and suddenly rolled onto his back and kicked back.  
  
The one who had twisted his braid around one hand, suddenly let loose of it to clutch at his groin as Duo's boot sank into it. Duo was thrusting himself up off the ground in a lightning move then, braid snapping out behind him as he threw himself at the howling man and took him to the ground. The hard edge of his hand caught the man in the chin and shoved the man's head up. A pop and a crack sounded and the man stopped howling.  
  
Duo had used the last of his strength. Eyes rolling up as the world thinned and drifted into a red haze, he wondered if he should give himself last rights and confess his sins, as he collapsed onto the dead body beneath him.  
  
"You bastard!" The other man's voice boomed and Duo waited for the final death blow.  
  
Nothing happened. Duo flinched as a hand pulled on him, pulled him up, and flung his arm over broad shoulders. Duo swiveled his head and blinked blearily at the man who was forcing him to his unsteady feet. "Heero?"  
  
Heero didn't respond with anything except, "Report."  
  
Duo spat blood, and a part of a chipped back tooth, and then he managed to reply, "You had a seizure of some sort. Oz stormed the school. My little piece of tail came to tell me about it. I knocked him out, threw our things together, and tried to escape with you. I didn't get far. We're still on school grounds. I was trying to get the jump on two those two Oz soldiers when number three came out of nowhere." He panted, gathered strength, and continued with sobbing breath, "Tell me you can get us out of here, Heero, because I'm pretty bad."  
  
Weak, Heero thought. Duo had tears and blood running down his face and he was shivering and leaning heavily on him. He weighed his options, uppermost whether he could manage to escape with Duo nearly passing out and whining and moaning behind gritted teeth.  
  
"Quiet" Heero finally hissed as he slung the pack Duo had discarded earlier over one shoulder and felt the comforting weight of his laptop and their personal things.  
  
"Trying, man! Trying!" Duo hissed back and buried his face against Heero's side to muffle himself in Heero's coat.  
  
Heero raised his gun and aimed the barrel at Duo's head, the oblivious pilot unaware that his life was in danger from the very man who had just saved his life. Heero's mind worked with the speed of a computer, pluses and minuses lining up in a column next to Duo's name. He hated the relief when more pluses than minuses occurred to him. Duo was a liability at that moment, but his expertise was invaluable to the war effort. He was a weapon and Heero didn't toss aside his weapons lightly.  
  
Reversing the gun, Heero hit Duo behind the ear. The pilot crumpled and his noises stopped. Slinging him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, Heero turned to try and win a deadly game of hide and seek with the Oz soldiers searching for them.  
  
+  
  
"You can get off now," Duo's hoarse voice informed Heero.  
  
Heero snapped awake and unfolded from around Duo, his coat falling from them both. They were covered in leaves and branches and tucked in a hollow behind a fallen tree. At the end of his strength earlier that morning, Heero had done his best to conceal them, hoping against hope that they wouldn't be spotted by heat detection devices. He had allowed himself sleep then, sharing body warmth with Duo, who had been shivering and close to shock.  
  
Duo's amethyst eyes were level and serious under his matted chestnut bangs. He stared hard at Heero for a long minute and then he said, "Well, THAT was a disaster! Any theories as to what might have happened?"  
  
Heero blinked, feeling gritty, but recovering quickly, blood beginning to circulate and warm him, aches and pains becoming manageable. Duo didn't have his ability. He still looked pale and pinched, his face a network of raised bruises and contusions. He looked brittle enough to break, even though his voice came out strong enough in thinly veiled accusation.  
  
"I tried the codes," Heero replied as he turned away and used keen ears and eyes to scan their surroundings. The woods he had fled into was deep and offered a great deal of cover. "I tripped a security system."  
  
Duo thought over that, mind working on possible scenarios. "I covered all the bases," he replied with a frown. "The codes I stole, and the bugs I planted, were all in safe areas."  
  
Heero admitted stiffly, "I went to an area that was restricted. I tripped the security system."  
  
Heero felt Duo gripping his coat and spinning him around. He found himself looking into Duo's white, bruised face, his purple eyes wide and almost all pupil. He hung on Heero, too weak to support his own weight for long, as he shouted. "You stupid bastard! People died for those codes! I risked my life for them! What was so important? Tell me, dammit! What was that important?!"  
  
Heero placed a broad hand over Duo's mouth and said icily. "Be quiet before you give away our position."  
  
Duo jerked his face away, staggered, and sat down cross legged with his head in his hands. He breathed in shuddering gasps as Heero stared down at him. After a few, long minutes, Duo raised his head and his face was stiff and calm. "We have to get our Gundams out of here."  
  
"Yes," Heero agreed.  
  
Duo nodded. "Let's do that. I'll beat the crap out of you later."  
  
+  
  
Rescuing their Gundams turned out to be very difficult. There were too many soldiers patrolling the woods, beating the bushes for them, confident that any other escape had been cut off and that their prey had to be close at hand. Heero and Duo moved from place to place to avoid them, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse in cold and growing misery, and not making any headway towards their Gundams.  
  
A light, misting rain, came down incessantly. Hypothermia was becoming a real fear, especially for Duo, who still hadn't recovered from his beating. After two days of crawling in mud and hiding under bushes, he was a wreck; covered in leaves and mud, braid a wet tangle, face pasty and sunken. He shivered constantly and walking was impossible unless Heero lent him his strong arm to hold him upright.  
  
It was the first time that Heero had been able to spend that amount of time with someone since his training days. He was finding himself far superior to Duo in every physical way and wondered if it was just Duo he was superior too or other men as well. Had doctor J given him an edge, enhanced his body in some way that he didn't know about?  
  
"Stop!" Duo whimpered.  
  
Huddled together in the even temperature of a very small cave, the hard floor was their cruel bed, and their body warmth their only means of survival. Holding Duo against him, suffering the young man's stubborn, hate filled silence for yet another night, Heero almost welcomed the sound of Duo's voice, even if it was the product of a nightmare.  
  
"Won't do it again!" Duo whimpered in a very young sounding voice. "Promise- promise.... don't hurt them! I talked them into it. Was all my fault. All my fault, damn you! No....," he squirmed against Heero, beginning to sob, and then he began thrashing madly, shrieking at the same time. "Fuckers! They're just babies!! Stop hitting them! Stop it! It was all my fault!"  
  
Heero clamped a hand over Duo's mouth and shook at him. "Wake up, pilot!" he hissed in Duo's ear. "Wake up!"  
  
Duo took in a sobbing breath. Heero couldn't see him in the darkness, but he could imagine tears. Duo stuttered out, "W-Wher am- Where am I?"  
  
"A cave," Heero grated. "Now stop your noise before sound detectors pick us up!"  
  
He could feel Duo thinking, remembering, mind putting everything into focus. "Oh, yeah.... I remember," he muttered and then louder as he shook at Heero, "I remember that you screwed up! I didn't get my revenge because of you!"  
  
"Be quiet!" Heero warned. "Or I will be forced to eliminate you, despite your expertise."  
  
"Aw, you think I'm good enough to keep alive?" Duo drawled sarcastically. "Isn't that sweet? Well, you're going to regret that decision, you bastard! I don't think we're getting out of this one and I don't feel too 'alive', so I'll get my payback right, now, thanks so much!"  
  
Heero felt a fist connect with his jaw with unerring accuracy. Duo wasn't as strong as Heero, certainly not in his present condition, but he had big knuckles on a thin hand. They were sharp and hard. He hit with the force of a mule kick and Heero saw bright lights behind his eyes. He took a breath and grabbed out to pin Duo down. He needn't have bothered. Duo was unconscious.  
  
Feeling along Duo's arm, Heero was going to travel up it to find Duo's pulse at his neck. Instead, his hand encountered a bump that was large enough to make it's presence known even under Duo's tight fitting, black thermal clothing. The arm might have been fractured before, but it was definitely broken now. The force of the punch must have caused it. Heero surmised, and the pain had knocked an already weakened Duo out cold.  
  
Heero weighed options once more. Their situation had become intolerable. Two pilots and two Gundams were in danger of being lost to the war effort. It was time to forget careful planning and patient waiting. It was time to make a run for it. He would take Duo as far as his Gundam and put him in the cockpit. If he could pilot with a broken arm and reduced capabilities Heero would clear the way for him and make good their escape. If not, he was certain, just like in his own Wing Gundam, that there was a self destruct button in Deathscythe. Oz wasn't going to get pilot or Gundam.  
  
Heero settled himself to wait then, until the moon set and they had complete darkness. A small part of his mind prickled pain, threatening him as he spared a thought for allowing Duo to recover as well and not because he wanted to save a good pilot. Something buried deep inside of Heero didn't want those amethyst eyes to close forever even if they only reflected Duo's hate for him.  
  
Heero mollified his training, by cutting off the emotions that went with that thought, but the traitor thought had still come to mind, and that troubled Heero. To distract himself, he began running over mental maps of the area and running scenarios in his head. Not knowing the positions of the Oz troops, it was a worthless exercise, but it kept his training from attacking him as he pulled Duo closer into his embrace and found himself guiltily enjoying, as he had the previous nights, being in contact with another person. What was happening to him? He wondered. He hated this breach in his training and told himself he hated Duo for causing it, yet, he didn't change his position or try and wake Duo until the moon had set.  
  
+  
  
"I'm still alive," Duo panted through the pain as he woke up. "I don't think I want to be!"  
  
"I went out and scouted briefly. I heard three ships pass over head. They haven't stopped looking for us," Heero informed Duo as he crouched close by Duo's head. "If you're done whimpering and trying to kill me, I suggest that we try and make it to our Gundams before pursuit can capture us."  
  
"No can do," Duo hissed and Heero heard him try and sit up. He also heard Duo fall back with a moan. "Muscles stiffened during the night and my arm... God! It's broken! I can also feel a swelling under my ribcage. Something's not right, Yuy. I'm not going to be able to run and hide. I'm not going to be able to get into the cockpit by myself. You must know all of that, so, either I was wrong when I figured you for a genius, or you're really a magician and you're going to work a miracle. Which is it?"  
  
Heero let the silence grow, hating Duo's flippant attitude, his insistence on being sloppy and defeatist, and his unwillingness to wait for information before passing judgment. "We need to rescue the Gundams. I can't save both of them by myself. If I attempt to take out Wing, it will alert Oz and they will search for, and find, Deathscythe."  
  
Duo reached out into the darkness and gripped Heero's arm as hard as he could. It didn't seem very hard to Heero and Duo's hand was shaking. Duo released him. "If it comes to a fight, and it will, I'll need two good hands, Heero. Right now, I don't have any."  
  
"I intend to save Wing," Heero said in a flat tone. "Deathscythe must not fall into enemy hands."  
  
Duo understood then. "Doesn't seem right," he said at last. "You're the one that screwed up, but I'm the one that has to self destruct for it. Life just isn't freakin' fair!"  
  
"I didn't 'screw up', " Heero replied sharply.  
  
"No?" Duo shot back. "What would you call it then?"  
  
"I was trying to gather important information," Heero replied in his defense. "I couldn't have known that such a simple search would trigger security protocols. You planted bugs in the system to allow for that very kind of access."  
  
"Thanks, man!" Duo snarled and then whimpered in pain as if he had tried to sit up again. "Not only do I get to self destruct Deathscythe, but I get blamed for everything going wrong as well!"  
  
Heero blinked, frowning as he replied. "I am not placing the blame on you. Neither of us could have foreseen what happened."  
  
"At least tell me what you were looking for," Duo demanded hotly.  
  
"Classified," Heero replied, shortly ,and it wasn't a lie. He didn't want Duo knowing what he had been looking for.  
  
"That doesn't wash, Yuy!" Duo snarled back. "You don't keep secrets from me when we have to rely on each other during a mission. Tell me what you were looking for or I refuse to move an inch from this nice, freezing, rock floor."  
  
"Perhaps you should start first then," Heero replied evenly. "Reveal your secrets. Reveal why you have an Oz tracking number on your leg."  
  
Duo snorted derisively. "Is that all? It's not a big secret or anything." He paused as a thought occurred to him, incredulous, he continued, "Did you think I put it there myself, because I love Oz or something?! Is that what you were fucking looking for? The tracking number? Shit, Heero! Of course you tripped every alarm in the system. That's old data! There's security protocols for that and my hack didn't protect against it!"  
  
Duo groaned and Heero heard him panting in fury. "Men died because you wouldn't just ASK me, Heero!"  
  
"Tell me," Heero insisted, without sympathy, without emotion.  
  
Duo's voice came out pinched and chill in the darkness. "I was part of a street gang. We stole here and there to feed ourselves, but we didn't have anything besides that; food in our bellies enough times to keep us barely alive." He paused in pain and then continued bitterly. "I had the bright idea to make a hit on one of the supply depots. We were caught and...." Duo stopped again for a long minute and then softly, "They tortured those kids. Beat them bloody. They laughed when they did it, like it was a game.... kick the street rat.... just like they were doing to me back there at the school only these kid were all under ten. Three of them died. Two were permanently crippled. They branded all of us on the leg with one of those irons they used to mark shipping crates. They told us, if they caught us again, they would kill us. They let everyone crawl away, eventually, those that could, but they found out the whole thing was my idea. They tied my leg down and they told me they were going to hamstring me so that I wouldn't get around anymore and make trouble like that again. They cut pretty deep before an officer showed up and told them to get back to work. He didn't even care that they were torturing me. They left me like that, just walked away. I had to stop the bleeding and get loose myself. So.... satisfied that I'm not an Oz operative? Was it worth all of those lives? Was it worth screwing up the mission?"  
  
"We need to go," Heero said, cutting off emotions viciously, horror front and foremost. Duo's story was nothing new. It happened all too often. It was one of Heero's reasons for fighting, to stop that kind of evil and to bring peace. It was a contradiction that he had to be as cold hearted as those Oz soldiers and deny Duo sympathy, deny him a moment to recover, deny him the chance to place blame on him and punish him for it. They had to escape. They had to save the Gundams. They had to regroup and then return later to finish what they had started.  
  
"Oh, don't go crying on me or 'nothing, Yuy!" Duo snarled. "Get me the Hell up and let's get the Hell out of here!"  
  
Heero straightened with Duo, lifting him to uncertain feet, feeling him shaking and hearing the hiss and muttered groans of someone in horrible pain. Duo was a contradiction as well and Heero was confused by it. He couldn't understand how someone could be so weak and frail, both mentally and physically, yet strong too and determined enough to walk when Heero walked, even knowing that his death was their destination. He had peeled back some of Duo's past, but it had only spawned more questions and contradictions in himself. He had sentenced Duo to self destruction, yet he found himself driving his mind to all extremes to find an alternative. That divided attention was unacceptable, yet Heero couldn't stop himself. A dead Duo would end that confusion, that dangerous contradiction, but also, Heero felt, Duo would take something with him into death, a small part of Heero that had been dark until the braided, irreverent, pilot had come into his life to light it up. Against all training, daring the pain of correction, Heero searched for a way to save Duo, searched for a way to keep that small light burning.


	5. Animal

"Heero.... Hiiro... Hey- roh, What the heck does your name mean anyway?"  
  
"What does it matter?"  
  
"Humor me."  
  
"No."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Why are you called Duo?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Wordless growl.  
  
"I'll tell, if you'll tell."  
  
"Acceptable."  
  
"That's different."  
  
"What is?"  
  
"You aren't telling me to shut up. Aren't you afraid that Oz will detect my voice?"  
  
Silence  
  
"For once, you're not being loud."  
  
"That's because I'm dying."  
  
"True."  
  
"You could lie to me."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"To make me feel better."  
  
"A lie will make you feel better?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Lying is false data. It endangers the mission."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Let's not talk about me dying."  
  
"Acknowledged."  
  
Duo shifted in the mud, Heero a heavy weight on top of him. He could imagine bugs and leaches attaching themselves to his skin and he shivered from more than the constant, drizzle of cold rain. They had hollowed out a depression and used the mud to coat their skins, hoping to foil heat detectors. Oz had been close on their heels, were still close. One false move.. so it was strange that Heero wanted to talk, though they were nose to nose, body heat insulated in the thick mud, and Duo could whisper his words right into Heero's ear if he chose. That was too tempting though, so he refrained, opting to stare into the darkness and imagine Heero's invisible face an inch from his own.  
  
"I guess that means, yes, " Duo said , his voice weak in his own ears. He had been joking about dying, but he began to wonder. There was a definite pain underneath his ribs and his whole body throbbed and ached as if it were about to ignite in fever. His broken arm was the worst. He had it tucked safely away from Heero and any chance touch. It was swollen near his elbow where Heero had set it and wrapped it in splints. The pain of that had been close to traumatizing. Duo didn't like to remember how Heero had gaged him to keep him from screaming and crying like a baby. He didn't like to remember how close he had come to losing it all together and running to Oz for painkillers of any kind. Heero had given him, not a painkiller, but the ultimate incentive to overcome the shock and agony. Heero had given him two choices. Make it to his Gundam and die like man, or stay in the mud and rain and be put down like an animal. The choice had been ridiculously easy. Duo's pride was stronger than any physical limitation or torture. When Heero had dragged him to his feet, he had forced himself to walk.  
  
It seemed that he might die in the rain and mud anyway. Oz had them pinned down. Hiding places were being eliminated systematically. It was only a matter of time before they were discovered or kept in the weather until they both died of exposure. Duo didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about death, pain and misery.  
  
"Two," Duo said suddenly.  
  
He could imagine Heero blinking down at him, his breath warm on his face.  
  
"Two," Heero echoed.  
  
"My name," Duo replied. "It means, 'two'."  
  
Heero made a very small, exasperated sound and Duo smiled. What better distraction was there than to try and get under Heero's skin?  
  
"I know that," Heero said.  
  
"Know what?" Duo needled.  
  
"Know that your name means, 'two'."  
  
"Then why did you ask?"  
  
"I didn't."  
  
"You did so," Duo argued maddeningly. "I asked you what your name meant and you told me to tell you-"  
  
"You misunderstood," Heero retorted. "Your name is obviously not your own. It is a code name. I wished to know why that particular name was chosen."  
  
"I didn't have a name. I chose it myself," Duo replied. "Everyone called me 'Kid' up until then."  
  
"You chose it." Heero asked, "What is it's significance?"  
  
"Does it have to have one?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well, there is one," Duo chuckled and pulled Heero very close so that his lips were touching Heero's soft ear. "It's to remember the best friend I ever had, but that's between you and me."  
  
"Solo," Heero guessed.  
  
"Solo," Duo confirmed.  
  
"Why confide in me?" Heero wondered.  
  
"You're the only one who ever asked."  
  
Heero felt a flush go over his cheeks. Duo's soft, hoarse voice, the feel of his wiry body beneath his, and Duo's breath at his ear made an odd feeling over come his stone like reserve, his perfect concentration on the mission. Heero felt shyness grip him once more, the same shyness that had plagued him, off and on, at the school whenever Duo had come too close, either physically or emotionally. The shyness had confused him then, but there, together in the dark without any other distractions, Heero understood. In the area of war, Heero was a perfect weapon, knowing every aspect of his craft. As a young man who had never had a 'best friend' or any friend for that matter, interacting for a long period of time with another person was uncharted territory. What Duo took for granted, a perfect understanding of other people and how to deal with them, Heero found completely unfathomable. The talkative pilot beneath him, was a mystery. He didn't know what Duo Maxwell would do or say next. That very unpredictable nature was keeping Heero off balance and making him feel... unsure of himself.  
  
Duo shifted and Heero was suddenly aware of Duo's crotch hard against his own. "Your turn," Duo prompted and Heero dragged himself back out of his thoughts to consider what that meant.  
  
"Your name," Duo clarified, hating the silence that allowed him to think about his desperate situation and ready to drag Heero kicking and screaming into conversation if he had to.  
  
"It's a code name," Heero replied.  
  
"Duh!" Duo sighed. "Continue."  
  
"I fight for peace. It was thought that carrying the name of a peace activist was fitting," Heero replied.  
  
"Pretty simple," Duo muttered, wishing that it had been more complicated than that. He shifted again. "Uh, Heero. I'm not really the 'bottom' type. Do you mind if I get on top?"  
  
Heero considered his defense options if they were suddenly attacked. "No," he replied. "I am more capable than you are to defend us."  
  
"At least move over a little," Duo whined. "I don't want you to punch me or anything, but if you keep rubbing up against me, you can guess what's going to happen. I'm in pretty crappy shape, but a guy is a guy!"  
  
Heero frowned. "I don't understand. Am I injuring you? Close contact is necessary if you wish to survive until we reach our Gundams."  
  
"I'm bisexual, Heero. You, uh, well, even if I was straight, you'd still...," Duo fumbled in the face of Heero's naivete. "Well, shit, Yuy!" he finally exploded. "I don't want you punching me out because your crotch rubbing on mine gives me a hard on! Is that clear enough warning?"  
  
"I still don't understand," Heero replied, but his hand had crept up to Duo's throat, "but you will lower your voice, or I will have to act to silence you."  
  
Heero could feel Duo swallow against his fingers. "K," Duo whispered. "Just... Heero, you're stronger than a lot of guys. I don't want you to get uptight and decide to start punching perverts. I don't think I would survive it."  
  
Heero was completely mystified now. "We are surrounded by Oz. I have been able to gather some food from the forest, but starvation is a possibility. You are badly injured. Hypothermia is a real danger. Completing the mission will mean your self destruction. Your sexual orientation, and involuntary bodily functions, have nothing to do with those difficulties and, therefore, are not of any concern to me."  
  
"You act like you don't get hard ons," Duo replied softly, "and you sound like I'm weak for having them."  
  
"I am in control of my body," Heero stated simply.  
  
Sleep was death, Duo knew, and boredom caused sleep. He smiled in the darkness, his mind blessedly distracted from the horrible pain throbbing through his body, with every heart beat, and the growing chill of the mud all around him. Even if he didn't sleep, Duo felt, death would still come for him eventually. It was seeping up along his back and slowly encircling his body despite Heero's almost animal warmth. It wouldn't be much longer, he thought, and Duo kept talking, kept baiting Heero, kept trying to hide from death like a child pulling covers over his head to escape a nightmare. Pushing a button and knowing 'when' was much easier than waiting and wondering when he would take his last breath. The fear of that made Duo outrageous, dangerous, fearless.  
  
"Are you trying to tell me," Duo said in patent disbelief. "That if I rub up against you, you won't get a hard on? Because that's what you're insinuating; that you're better than me."  
  
"I am in control," Heero repeated with a hard edge.  
  
Duo took up the gauntlet. He rubbed upwards, ignoring the tearing pain of arm and stomach, pelvis finding Heero's crotch and doing an obscene bump and grind. Heero ignored him, growled a warning once or twice and then... Duo felt it. He began to crow in triumph, but Heero's hand clamped on his arm at the same time and Heero cried out, muffling it against Duo's shoulder. Duo didn't have time to wonder whether the cry was pain or pleasure. Heero had squeezed his broken arm.  
  
Duo tried to shriek, but Heero's free hand was clamped tightly over his mouth. He convulsed instead, chin slamming against Heero's head as he thrashed. The world went red. The pain had gone beyond what his mind could comprehend or deal with. Duo began to black out, but Heero was releasing him, saying in his ear with a voice ragged and hoarse. "Do that again and you die!" Duo was weeping, hallucinating too, he thought, because he thought he could feel Heero's tears against his face as well. That couldn't be. Duo couldn't imagine such an emotionless bastard crying.  
  
"S-S-Sorry," Duo stammered through the waves of receding pain, his senses still on the verge of unconsciousness. "D-Don't hurt me again, p-please! K, Heero, K?  
  
Heero had responded to Duo. His body had betrayed it's training. The mild erection had merited a mild shock of pain. It was already fading, leaving Heero hating himself and hating Duo most of all. That generated a sense of well being hot on the heels of the pain and Heero let out a long breath against Duo's neck, letting his full weight rest on the pilot of Deathscythe while he tried to recover.  
  
"Just trying to distract myself," Duo explained at last, was quiet for a moment and then finished, "Dying sucks, Heero."  
  
Heero had watched many men die. Some had taken it well, but not many. Most fought it until the end, screaming, begging, and crying out. Most didn't handle it as well as Duo was handling it now. Heero understood what Duo had been doing. The pain Heero felt was a tool to keep his mind focused, to eliminate distraction, and to punish failure. Duo had his own kind of training. Unorthodox, dangerous, and disruptive, it had still been effective, keeping the young man focused on his goal and strong, instead of becoming swamped in the fear of his approaching death until it made him hesitate, or worse, refuse to carry out the end of the mission; his own destruction. As Heero realized this, his hatred of Duo slowly dissipated and respect began to replace it.  
  
"Acknowledged," was all Heero could find to say, but it said volumes and Duo understood what he was offering. He felt Duo relax. Heero shifted his weight to give him some relief.  
  
"You're a bastard, you know that, Yuy?" Duo said suddenly, his voice a little clearer as the pain began to become manageable again. "If I get out of this... If we get out of this, I'm going to beat the crap out of you... Torturing a wounded man is pretty low!"  
  
Heero didn't explain himself. Everyone was a potential enemy, even a broken boy stretched out beneath him, and he didn't tell his weaknesses to enemies. The pain of his training was also a point of humiliation. It meant failure to perform, and Heero wouldn't easily admit to that either. It was easier to tell another kind of truth, one that didn't carry danger or a loss of pride in himself.   
  
"I don't wish sexual relations of any kind," Heero told Duo. "I understand that you felt it necessary to stimulate and distract yourself, but you will not make me a part of that objective again."  
  
"Just say so next time," Duo snarled, low and vicious. "I warned you and you ignored me, remember? You can't blame me for acting my age."  
  
"You can't afford to act your age," Heero replied. "Not with the colonies and Earth depending on you."  
  
Duo grinned in the darkness. "Depending on me... depending on me to blow my old buddy Deathscythe up along with me in it?"  
  
"If you are unable to pilot it, yes," Heero replied.  
  
Duo chuckled. "Was that optimism I heard in your voice, Yuy? I didn't think you had it in you. I thought that you had already written me off."  
  
"You have unpredictable determination," Heero replied.   
  
"Must be love," Duo laughed softly.  
  
"I don't understand," Heero replied, confused again.  
  
"Never mind, Yuy," Duo sighed and then, "I've run out of things to say. Please keep me awake... without squeezing on broken bones again."  
  
Heero sat up instead, dislodging himself from the mud. His sharp senses had been monitoring their surroundings without pause, despite his interaction with Duo, and they had come to an abrupt decision. The search planes had stopped flying over head.  
  
"What?" Duo wondered wearily, hating the cold that was suddenly overtaking the warm area that Heero had vacated.  
  
"I don't know," Heero replied. "Make yourself ready to move. I'll scout the area."  
  
Duo heard Heero moving away and he managed to sit up, arm protesting, body screaming at him to lie down and stop fighting the inevitable. He wondered how Heero could see anything in that pitch blackness or why he had suddenly thought that it was time to go. They had been pinned down in that area most of the evening and the night. Oz knew that they were somewhere within their grasp. They wouldn't just give up and go home.  
  
"U-Useless," Duo chattered as he hugged his arms around his body, shaking with cold. He couldn't move, couldn't even reach out to pull their pack towards him and pull down the coat they had propped up on low branches to shield them from some of the rain. He waited for Heero instead, but the smell of smoke came to his nose long before Heero returned.  
  
"Aww! Fuck!" Duo groaned. "They're trying to burn us out!"  
  
"Yes," Heero said at Duo's shoulder, causing Duo to start badly and whimper at the pain it caused him. "We have to move, quickly. They've torched the forest on the three sides, trying to drive us towards them." He sounded strangely respectful of Oz tenacity and innovation.  
  
Heero hooked an arm around Duo and pulled him to his feet. Slinging their pack on his shoulder, he began a nightmare rush towards safety, dragging Duo behind him.  
  
Duo tried not to scream, tried to stifle his choked sobs and whimpers. It was almost impossible to keep his feet, to keep his senses, as he tried to navigate the rough terrain. He would make it, he chanted to himself. He had to make it. Falling down and dying wasn't an option.  
  
His legs were leaden, his blood ice, his head full of cotton, and his eyes filmed with a red haze. Duo's world reduced itself down to the sound of his heartbeat and the rasp of his breath. When he couldn't feel his feet anymore, he knew even his strength of will wasn't going to be enough.  
  
The world whirled, pain shot through every part of him like lightning, continued to arc through him as he realized that Heero had picked him up, the super strong young man, carrying him as easily as he carried the pack. But, Duo thought, that burst of strength was deceptive. Even Heero could only last so long like that, especially as the thick smoke gathered and began to clog their lungs.  
  
The flames were around them so suddenly that Duo didn't have time to react, to think that it would be better to die in a mud filled hollow than to burn up alive in a forest fire. Heero took the choice from him as he began to run, Duo' weight jogging on his shoulders, inhuman, piston like legs pumping as he ran straight into the flames.  
  
Duo cringed. He felt hair and skin singe. He began to quickly confess his sins, wishing for a priest of any kind, hand clutching at Heero and his gold cross, as they tried the impossible, jump through a thin wall of flames and land safely on the other side.  
  
They hit the ground rolling Duo felt Heero's hands slapping at him, trying to put out the flames, the wet mud doing the rest by coating them both and putting out the smoldering parts of clothing and hair. They came out of the roll and, as if it were a strange sort of dance, Heero was coming to his feet and throwing Duo back onto his shoulders, without a moments pause. Incredible! Duo thought as he sobbed and clung, wishing for the oblivion of unconsciousness, but knowing that he didn't have the luxury. He had to stay alert. He had to endure until he could reach his Gundam. He had to hope that Heero would continue doing the impossible and get them both there.  
  
Heero stopped, lungs working like bellows, sweat running down and steaming the cold air. He shifted to pull a remote from his pocket. He punched buttons and the waters of a mist covered lake erupted. Deathscythe came walking from the depths like a demon from Hell, water cascading everywhere and hydraulics and machinery making a noise that anyone could hear.  
  
"You have my codes!" Duo wheezed as he tried to crane his neck to see his beloved Deathscythe coming for him. "How the Hell did you get them?!"  
  
"Simple," Heero panted. "Braid. Spell it and give each letter a numerical value in the alphabet. You are transparent."  
  
"Did you just call me an idiot?" Duo demanded weakly, but Heero was already programming Wing to follow Deathscythe.  
  
"No, time," Duo hissed as he saw search beams cutting through the darkness towards them. "Get us in Deathscythe and we'lI blow up Wing."  
  
"No," Heero grated as he sprinted for Deathscythe, punching in the command to lower the lift. It lowered as Deathscythe and Wing continued to walk. Heero ran to meet it.  
  
There was only room for one at a time. Heero hooked the lift to Duo's belt and then gave it the command to lift him up rapidly. Before Duo could leave the ground, Heero leapt onto him, wrapping legs tightly about Duo's waist and hands locking onto the lift line itself as it pulled up both of their weights at a dangerous speed.  
  
"Any other time, Yuy," Duo groaned. "I'd be appreciating this position, but right now, all I wanna know is, what the shit do you think that you're going to do now?"  
  
Heero didn't reply. He kept punching buttons on the remote, commanding Deathscythe and Wing to walk towards the now raging fire while he opened hatches and brought Wing very close to Deathscythe.  
  
"G-Good idea," Duo said when he noticed, but bullets began pinging against the Gundanium hull of Deathscythe all around them. Oz had found them.   
  
The lift reached the hatch. Heero scrambled inside, unlocked Duo, and dragged him, crying out, into the cramped confines of the cockpit. He then threw Duo into the command chair and sprinted for the hatch again without hesitation, leaving Duo to do the rest.  
  
The remote could make Deathscythe walk and open hatches, but it couldn't make it fight, Duo thought. He turned on outside monitors and watched in amazement as Heero made the incredible jump between Gundams. He landed safely, steel toed boots scrambling on the slick metal, as he dived into the cockpit of Wing. The hatch closed and Duo sighed in relief. That relief lasted only a second as he tried to lift his broken arm and found it lifeless. He needed it, absolutely needed it to pilot Deathscythe and make it fight. There were too many controls for a crippled man to operate. Even his good hand was shaky and uncertain.  
  
Self destruct? Duo licked filthy lips and stared hard at the control that would rip Deathscythe from the inside out, making it useless for Oz. Not yet, he thought. He wanted to make them hurt before he died.  
  
They made it to the fire, but other suits were waiting for them, undeterred by the flames. Duo, ever resourceful, flipped off his boots. Wrapping one ankle around a critical lever, he tied the other into the straps of the seat as best he could one handed. It was his only security. He needed full movement of his body to at least put up some fight. That slender strap had to hold, had to keep him from being a bloody smear against a wall or ceiling of the cockpit.  
  
"I hate gravity!" Duo snarled as he jumped Deathscythe, knowing that the odds of landing safely without being able to operate half the controls, was nil. Still, it would give him fighting room he needed. The only effective strategy for the lesser suits was to get inside his defense and bring him down by sheer numbers. He couldn't let that happen, not before he self destructed and eked out a little revenge.  
  
As the Gundam seemed to fly through the air, Duo had a quick site of Wing truly flying, arrowing away to safety. It was something, Duo supposed, that at least one Gundam escaped, but he still couldn't help the dark feeling of being abandoned.  
  
The ground was coming up. Duo frantically fumbled with leg, ankle, and shaking hand to navigate Deathscythe's limbs properly. He did good, Duo thought, allowing himself a moment of pride, before he realized that it hadn't been good enough. Deathscythe slid in mud and came down hard, Duo unable to move quickly enough to compensate. The shock of returning gravity threw Duo up towards the ceiling. The strap held, but Duo was tossed like a rag doll, first up, and then down onto the controls with violent force. Almost instinctively, Duo hit the gyros and shoved down with his free leg on the control that would cause Deathscythe to compensate using the computer, dangerous and nowhere near perfect, but... Deathscythe went down. Attempt unsuccessful.  
  
Duo was thrown again and everything shuddered. He blacked out and then came to moments later with a bloody face, Deathscythe half on its back and a hand already reaching for the self destruct.  
  
The monitors flickered with the white yellow light of a beam canon. The suits beginning to surround Duo were suddenly not there. Heero had returned. Heero was giving him one more chance.... or coming back to make sure that, if Duo couldn't blow Deathscythe, he would be there to do it for him.  
  
Duo wiped blood out of his face, snorted it from his bleeding nose, and grinned. "Not done yet," he hissed and flipped the controls. He opened a secure com link to Wing. "I have an idea. I can get Deathscythe out of here, if you stay and cover me."  
  
"Unacceptable risk," Heero stated coldly and Duo could see the beam cannon aiming for him.  
  
"Fucker!" Duo screamed, feeling as if his head was separating into painful chunks. "I can do this! Let me do it!"  
  
Silence. Duo ignored the cannon aimed at him and concentrated on loading all of his power into the thrusters. If it worked in space.... There was just a chance....  
  
"Once I do this, Heero, I need you to back me up," Duo explained. "I'm going to blast a wide radius and those suits aren't going to be able to take the heat. If it doesn't work, if Deathscythe can't take the heat either, I'll be doing what you want, self destructing, okay?"  
  
"Acknowledged," Heero replied, neither yes or no, but an answer of some kind.  
  
Duo didn't wait to figure out Heero's intentions. He hit the thrusters, full force, and fuel mixed with flame. The forest around Deathscythe was incinerated instantly. The mobile suits closing in cautiously, fried. Deathscythe shot upwards and angled towards the south, an incredible leap that possibly wouldn't have a survivable landing.  
  
Duo calculated and worked the controls as best he could through a haze of blood, mind turning numb and as unresponsive as his arm. Maybe he was dying anyway, Duo thought, but the grin didn't leave his face as the adrenalin rushed through him. He pictured the spectacular way he was going to die if everything didn't go right. It suited Shinigami.  
  
The ground rushed up, rocks and hard packed earth. Good and bad. Duo made a last adjustment and then braced himself. At the last moment, he felt Deathscythe shudder and come up short, and then he was being tossed up high and then brought crashing down into oblivion.


	6. Phoenix

He had to sleep some time. They whispered it more than once, not understanding that Heero wasn't like them, that his endurance could carry him for days. Sitting in a hard chair, gun resting in one hand on his lap, and feet planted firmly on the floor, he was ever ready to leap into action. The doctors didn't have a chance against him.   
  
They operated, slicing with lasers, replacing two organs with cultured ones, and closing wounds with micro stitches. Bones were reset with the best in reconstructive bio materials. A cracked skull was filled and internal bleeding stopped. Transfusions revitalized a body bled white. It was the best medical treatment that money could buy. Heero Yuy was stealing it, stealing it for Duo Maxwell to save his life.  
  
When Heero had pulled up Deathscythe, using Wing as a stabilizer, they had both landed hard. Deathscythe had been inoperative, systems blown and fused, energy depleted in it's last bid for safety. Miles from pursuit, and deep in a rugged rocky terrain blanketed with forests, Heero had dragged the dark Gundam into the side of a jutting rock formation and then had used Wing's strength and reach to pull down branches and vegetation to hide it. Putting on a radar jammer, Heero's only fear had been that Oz would track the machine by heat before the machine could cool off.  
  
The Gundams were invaluable. Heero's first concern had been to save them from discovery. That done, the all important pilot had been next. Opening the hatch of Deathscythe, the smell of blood, vomit, and urine had hit Heero's nose. His mind had assessed the situation in seconds and come up with a course of action even as he approached Duo's still body.  
  
Duo Maxwell had been sprawled over the controls of Deathscythe, feet bare, leg broken and twisted in a strap attached to the command chair. His braid tangled all about him, his face had been full of blood and vomit. Heero had checked his pulse and found him, incredibly, still alive, but not for much longer. Loading him into Wing, Heero had flown Duo out of the woods and mountains and brought him to one of the few places, Heero had felt, that could save a pilot so important to the war effort.  
  
It hadn't taxed Heero's skills to round up the best doctors in the hospital, under a pretense of a meeting, and coral them into a little used operating room. Donning surgical gear, Heero had taken up his vigil, while the coerced doctors had worked on Duo, turning aside any interruptions from curious hospital personnel, who happened on the operation, with the truth; a delicate operation was being preformed that would take most of the day and night. In it's eighteenth hour, Heero was still alert and diligent while the doctors themselves, all operating room veterans, were no less alert and waiting for him to make a mistake.  
  
"He's stabilized," a doctor finally reported with a sigh, "but you won't be able to move him without endangering his life."  
  
Heero's answer was to hold his breath and let loose a gas bomb. The doctors tried to get away, but none of them made it to the exit before they succumbed. Satisfied, Heero rose from his chair and began pulling out all of Duo's tubes except for a saline and morphine drip. Tucking these in beside Duo, he then lifted the pilot of Deathscythe, still in his operating sheet, and transferred him onto a gurney.  
  
Heero experienced a satisfied feeling as he headed for the emergency entrance of the hospital without anyone questioning him. The entire operation was going smoothly, like a dance, and he could feel the perfect rhythm in the beat of his feet as he reached the exit door of the hospital at last. It slid open automatically, revealing waiting ambulances, bored drivers, and safety. It was then that an alarm went off.  
  
Heero frowned, his mind working at hyper speed to determine the flaw in his plan. That flaw was on Duo's wrist. A patient monitor had been placed there by a clever surgeon. Not missing two beats, Heero jerked the wrist band off of Duo, hopefully not breaking fingers or delicate wrist bones to do it, and jammed it onto a teenager walking by with a limp. The young man howled and jerked away, flapping a hand that had been nearly crushed in an iron like grip. The hospital staff converged on the boy and Heero was ignored and allowed to continue out of the hospital.  
  
He had a few moments before the boy could explain and convince elders that the band didn't belong to him. Heero used those precious moments to utmost advantage as he flipped open the doors of an ambulance and accepted the help of a driver. Once Duo was loaded, Heero knocked the man unconscious with a violent punch, calculated to keep the man out for hours, and then flung him into the ambulance to lay sprawling beside where Duo lay.  
  
Heero drove the ambulance only a few miles, abandoned it on a back city street with the unconscious driver, and hot wired a car that was only a few steps away. Loading Duo onto the backseat, Heero peeled away from the scene of the crime and headed for the coordinates of the safe house, the place where the other Gundam pilots were waiting for them.  
  
+  
  
"Just like you, Yuy," Wu Fei growled as he twitched the blanket back over Duo's leg, hiding the numbered brand there once more. The oriental, Gundam pilot scowled at Heero, arms crossing over his chest. "You don't trust anyone, and because of that, you blew the mission!"  
  
"Duo was a part of that mission," Heero explained stonily. "The mission required a complete trust in his abilities and his affiliation to the cause. I couldn't risk that he would give away my position and follow me back to you and the other Gundams. He retrieved the codes far too easily. I was right to be suspicious."  
  
"Knowing that your computer search for those numbers triggered a security alarm, I suppose you still don't trust Duo," Quatre assumed sourly. The blonde Arabian came up on the other side of the bed and looked down at the unconscious Duo. Duo was milk pale, bruises and swellings surprisingly minimal after being treated and a broken nose set and already reducing it's red, swollen appearance. Quatre had fingers on some of the biggest hidden accounts in Space or on Earth, and money wasn't a concern for him, yet even he could appreciate the expensive, cutting edge, professional treatment Duo had received.  
  
"He risked his life to get Gundam Deathscythe out of the hands of Oz," Heero replied. "The actions he took were not survivable for a pilot. They were not the actions of a traitor. A traitor would have been allowed to escape, not attacked with killing force. If Duo were a traitor, he would have been allowed to follow me to my rendezvous with you without receiving fatal injuries."  
  
Quatre nodded. "I've worked with him the most. I know he's not a traitor, but I'm glad you're not suspicious any longer, Heero."  
  
Wu Fei growled, "He will always be suspicious. He questions my honor, your honor as well Quatre... Trowa. If he wasn't essential for the war, I would kill him for the insult."  
  
Heero gazed back at the pilots dispassionately. He wasn't going to apologize for something that had been trained into his blood and bones. Trowa was the only one who looked like he understood. He gave Heero a short nod from his position by Duo's IV's, confirming it. Quatre caught the look and he sighed, as if Trowa's distrust was a long running problem as well.  
  
"Well, we should let Duo sleep without all of this shouting," Quatre suggested. "Will you watch him, Trowa, or should I send one of the Maganocs?"  
  
Trowa didn't look worried. He never had much of an expression no matter how he felt and he usually hid that behind his fall of hair. Now he was doing that again, bent somewhat over Duo and checking his breathing as he replied, " I'll watch him for now, but I'm trained in basic medical techniques only, Quatre. If Duo should go critical again, I won't be much use to him."  
  
"He won't, " Heero assured them. "He had the best medical care. All of his critical damage has been repaired."  
  
"Doctors can't repair fever or bio rejection, Heero, you know that," Trowa replied.   
  
"Living or dying is up to Maxwell," Wu Fei said as he headed for the door of the room. "We can't give our position away by getting a doctor." He glanced back at the damaged Shinigami. "I'm surprised that you didn't let him die, Yuy. I'm still finding it hard to believe that you risked everything to take Maxwell to surgeons. Maybe there is a soul in that cold body of yours after all."  
  
Quatre stared after Wu Fei and then he looked back at Heero. "I know why you saved Duo and it didn't have anything to do with a compassionate soul."  
  
Trowa smirked as if it were funny and Quatre looked at him, confused by the taller boy's sense of humor.  
  
Heero turned on his heel and walked out of the room, not replying to the obvious. He didn't have to answer to anyone, but Dr. J, and he didn't care what the other pilots thought of him and his motives. He had retrieved an important weapon in the war, Duo Maxwell, and kept another important weapon, Deathscythe, from falling into enemy hands. The retrieval of the Gundam was still a priority, but Heero was confident that his actions had been successful and proper. He hadn't let anything as distracting as compassion or friendship sway him in any of his decisions. If things had gone wrong, he would have used his beam cannon on Duo and Deathscythe without a moments hesitation.  
  
Friendship... The soldier part of Heero's mind sneered and pain threatened. Why had he thought of friendship? Duo wasn't his friend. He was a tool, unwieldily, loudmouthed, and opinionated, but still a tool. He couldn't deny that Duo's skill as a soldier pleased him, and that his surprises of insight were intriguing, but allowing Duo to become too close was out of the question. Heero had never been close to anyone, not even the men who had trained him since he could remember. It was a weakness he had been trained not to allow.  
  
Heero cut off all traitor thoughts, traitor emotions that wondered if Duo would recover, wondered if he would get to work beside him again, and wondered most of all what other intriguing surprises the young man might reveal if contact was maintained. Heero settled the cold, detached, core of his training about him like a protective cloak and deleted all thoughts of Duo Maxwell, self proclaimed Shinigami, from his mind. Forget him. Let the others take care of him and bring him back to fighting strength again. Heero needed all of his attention placed where it belonged, on retrieving Deathscythe and making a report to send to Dr.J.  
  
His report to Dr. J would be without reproach, Heero thought, even the part where he had lost the security codes in a search for information. That information had been vital to the mission. Heero knew that he had been right to pursue it, even at it's high cost. He had to be absolutely certain of Duo's loyalty and of the loyalty of all the Gundam pilots. The only person he could trust, was himself, but he knew he couldn't win the war alone.  
  
+  
  
"And then he just left?" Duo wondered with an arched eyebrow as he sat on the veranda of the backwater Winner estate and sipped at a cool drink. The sun was filtering down through trees and flowering vines draped over the roof, but it was still hot. It felt good on his still aching body. He wasn't used to the inactivity or the quiet. The run down estate, buried in the back hills and accessible only by an overgrown dirt road, didn't have even a caretaker. Quatre's desert soldiers had cleaned it up enough to be livable, but it still had the air of decay, of a pile of wood slowly going to seed. Quatre found that uncomfortable. That condition had been bearable in the many safe houses they had taken shelter in, but he was finding it hard to accept in one of his own family's homes.  
  
"Yes, he just left," Quatre replied. "He packed a bag and went without a word. You shouldn't be angry, Duo. It was remarkable the way Heero took care of you."  
  
Quatre was leaning against a support post of the veranda, arms crossed over his vest, blue eyes half hidden under his fall of gold curls as he faced Duo. Seated in one of the overstuffed garden chairs, Duo had his feet propped up on a low table and he was dressed in very short shorts and a thin, tank top. Both of them were white and he looked odd in that color. It made his pale skin look translucent and the bruises that much more livid.   
  
Duo clenched an impotent fist and frowned. "He was a complete bastard, Quatre. He's going to pay for that."  
  
Quatre looked Duo up and down pointedly. He had recovered quickly, but he was still weak in many ways. His broken bones were sealed with bio material, but they still hurt, still made him limp, still caused him to sit down when the energetic, hyper, young man wanted to be up and doing things. The headaches were another, troubling problem. They came and went without rhyme or reason, sometimes so bad that Duo couldn't do more than hunker in a dark room and just try to breathe. Trowa had whispered about damage from a cracked skull and had warned Quatre to watch Duo carefully for any mental abnormalities. Aside from the headaches, Quatre had yet to see any.  
  
"Heero didn't specify a return date or a destination," Quatre said. "Sitting out here all day, waiting for him to return so that you can attack him, is very foolish in your condition, Duo. Besides, even if he did return now, you know that we need him, healthy and whole. Just as he couldn't kill you or leave you to die because of your worth, Duo, so too you can't harm him for the same reason."  
  
Duo grimaced and hunkered into his chair sullenly. "You're right, but I don't have to like it." He stared out at the overgrown yard and the rocky hills beyond, the dirt road winding between them. "I just don't get him, Quatre. He's like a hunk of stone. He doesn't feel and he doesn't want to feel anything. A few times, I thought I cracked him, made him react, but then he just iced over and reverted. A person can't live like that Quatre. A person has to enjoy life sometimes or he screws himself so tight, he can't see the point any more. The passion dies, the passion that keeps us doing what we're doing. We all have a cause, a reason for fighting. It keeps us going when we all should have happily lay down and died long ago. What's Heero's story? He can't just do it because he was ordered to."  
  
Quatre sighed, feeling sad, memories of his murdered father and sister prominent suddenly in his thoughts. Yes, Duo was right in that respect. He had a passionate need for revenge and a desperate need to see Earth and Outer Space at peace no matter what the cost to himself. Yet, Duo was wrong too. "Heero does have a cause. He wants peace."  
  
"Does he? I don't think that, Quatre, and neither do you, so don't give me that crap as an explanation to make me less angry," Duo growled.  
  
Quatre flushed uncomfortably. "All right, but the real reason won't please you either."  
  
"Try me."  
  
"Heero fights to be perfect," Quatre explained tersely, "to complete a mission as efficiently as possible, to be what he is to the exclusion of all else, even his humanity, so that he can know that he is the best. He doesn't have a past. He doesn't have a future. He only has a 'now' and now he wants to be perfectly himself."  
  
Duo scowled and finished his drink. He put the empty glass aside on a table and glared at Quatre. "Yeah, that's what I figured. Guess beating the crap out of him would be as stupid as beating my fists against a rock. It just wouldn't matter to him."  
  
"No, it wouldn't,' Quatre agreed. "You won't get an apology or the satisfaction of making Heero think differently about you."  
  
Duo sat up in his chair, surprised and embarrassed. "Stop using that Space Heart thingy on me , Quatre. That's stealing, stealing my thoughts."  
  
Quatre smiled, shaking his head. "I can't read your mind, Duo, but I am good at reading people emotionally. I can tell you are interested in Heero."  
  
"Interested like a guy is interested in a train wreck," Duo corrected. He shrugged. "I guess he's a challenge. I want to see who's underneath all of that conditioning."  
  
Quatre looked sad. "There might not BE anyone underneath, Duo."  
  
"There is," Duo replied with a glint in his yes. "I've seen him."


	7. Light You Up

"It's the shoes," Duo said with a small smile as he shaded his eyes and stared up at a grim faced Heero Yuy. "Big soles, big feet. I could hear you a mile away."  
  
In the middle of a field of flowers on the side of a hill, the sun was bright and hot on the two young men. Heero's shoulders twitched. He felt uncomfortable being that exposed to so much open sky and maybe observant enemy eyes. Duo at least was wearing his habitual black and hidden among the flowers. Heero was a blatant target, without even a tree to break up the incline of the hill or a single bush for cover.  
  
"I wasn't attempting to be quiet." Heero said tightly and then asked, "Why are you here?"  
  
Duo blinked up at him, purple eyes sparkling, "Just taking it easy, forgetting about the war for a little bit, and trying to soothe a monster headache by baking in the sun. Not much else to do without old Deathsycthe." His eyes became keen and determined. "You do realize that I will go and get him once I can make the hike?"  
  
"You didn't inform anyone where you were going," Heero said as if Duo hadn't spoken. "You are endangering yourself and our base of operations by exposing yourself to surveillance."  
  
Duo scowled. "Without Deathscythe, I'm just a boy without a home or a purpose. A nobody. There are a lot of them on Earth, Heero. Nothing remarkable. Nothing OZ would care about or take notice of. Besides, they can't check out every guy they see lying in a field of wildflowers. Even they aren't that powerful, so don't be so paranoid." He narrowed his eyes. "So, where were you? You didn't inform anyone about where you were going either. You just took off. Doesn't that endanger everyone too?"  
  
There was a difference, Heero thought irritably. He could be trusted to be secretive and to cover every eventuality. He could be trusted to keep his secrets even if he if captured and interrogated. Duo and the others couldn't give any such assurances. Keeping them hidden, and in a lock down situation between missions, was mandatory. Even Quatre, having had to deal with a hot headed Wu Fei, the loose cannon Duo, and the enigmatic Trowa, had agreed to help him keep all of the pilots isolated by choosing safe houses as far from humanity as possible. Though not always convenient to their targets, Heero considered it an acceptable trade off.  
  
"You will return to the safe house at once," Heero commanded.  
  
"Or what?" Duo wondered.  
  
Heero considered the braided young man at his feet and modes of pain that would convince him to obey. The consequences of those actions, though, ended up repeatedly at the same point. Duo would get angry, perhaps angry enough to separate from the group. Heero couldn't chance that. A ghost of a thought, quickly stamped out, was an aversion to his life returning to what it had been before Duo had interjected himself into it. Gray, was the best way to describe Heero's life of before. Gray and driven; his only interest and pleasure, the mission.  
  
Duo was waiting for his reply as if he had endless patience, but Heero knew that was just a mask. He could see the young man's body tensed, ready to respond to any force with all the defenses at his disposal.  
  
Heero chose his words carefully, at first calculating to the ninth degree the effect certain words might have on forcing Duo to return, and then opting for a more tailored approach he felt had greater odds of succeeding due to Duo's particular nature.   
  
"I wish to play a game of chess with you," Heero said simply. "There is not an ultimatum. It is a request."  
  
Duo blinked. He had often tried to get Heero to engage in activities, all overtures that Heero had turned down without consideration. He was understandably suspicious. "If a rabbit shows up with pink polka dots, Heero Yuy," he said at last. "Then you know someone painted them on. Is this a ploy to get me back to the house so that you can drug me, tie me down, or break a leg so that I stay there?"  
  
Heero replied, without subterfuge, "It is an attempt to recover you from this open position and then to convince you, with facts and reasoning, why it is important to remain indoors until either night fall or to carry out missions."  
  
Duo snorted. "Facts and reasoning aren't going to make me want to become a vampire and only come out at night, Yuy."  
  
"Vampire?" Heero frowned.  
  
"It was a sarcastic joke," Duo grumbled.  
  
"I do understand sarcasm," Heero replied. "It is misplaced in this circumstance."  
  
"Heero," Duo said pointedly. "I'm not going to listen to reason or let you drone facts at me while I struggle to play a boring game of chess. I am going out in the sunlight when I feel like it." He narrowed eyes at Heero and smirked as he continued, "but I will be careful about it. You didn't even give me credit for finding an overgrown field to lay down in. You, on the other hand, seem far more careless than me. You, after all, are standing where any Oz satellite or patrol can see you."  
  
Heero's jaw clenched and he persisted. "Will you return to the safe house, now?"  
  
"I suppose," Duo conceded with a sigh, unhappy that his dig hadn't made Heero react.  
  
"Will Raji assist you?" Heero wondered blandly.  
  
Duo narrowed his eyes and a young man suddenly sat up in the field of flowers a few yards away. He was one of Quatre's desert warriors, tall and slim, with large, dark, expressive eyes outlined by lashes so black they looked drawn on with eyeliner. His hair was shoulder length and bronze, high lights glinting in the sun. He was not handsome, he was beautiful. He was also shocked and completely embarrassed. He scrambled up and ran back to the safe house with his Arabic style robe hitched up above his knees.  
  
Duo continued to glare at Heero. "So, did you get an eye full before you LET me know you were there?"  
  
Heero remembered the scene he had happened on, how he had stopped, staring, seeing a pair of sandaled feet bobbing skyward and the black clad shoulders of Duo Maxwell between them, moving in a distinctive rhythm as he thrust in and out of the body beneath him.  
  
"Your sexual activities are not of any interest to me," Heero grated, using irritation and anger to disperse the physical reaction he could feel beginning in his groin, "but endangering our cover is."  
  
Duo stared and then he grunted. "You really don't care that I was just screwing Raji, do you? Don't you feel ANYTHING? You're a teenager for God's sake! You should be trying to screw anything that will hold still long enough!" His eyes flicked down to Heero's black clad groin. He went a little tight around the eyes as he wondered. "They, uh, didn't do something to you during your training, did they Yuy, because that would be just... yeah, just like those rat bastard doctors."  
  
"No, they did not operate on my genital area," Heero replied as blandly and as unemotionally as if he were talking about fuel ratios. "I am an unaltered male."  
  
"Really?" Duo smirked then, relieved. "Then you MUST have developed an iron rod in your pants watching me give it to that pretty, little piece of ass." He made a crude thrusting motion with his hips. "He was good and tight, Heero. If you swing that way, I could set you up with him. He's hot enough to spread his legs for anyone who talks sweet."  
  
Heero heard another level of questioning. Duo wanted to know something about Heero. He had been trained to recognize subtleties that might arise in an interrogation that would trick him into inadvertently revealing information. Since Heero didn't know Duo's motivation behind such questioning, he remained silent.  
  
Duo rubbed at his own crotch and licked his lips. "He gives good head too, Heero. You shouldn't pass up the opportunity. He's a real artist with that pretty mouth and tongue. He swallowed me whole and I am not small." He smirked as he rubbed at a renewed erection, eyes never leaving Heero's. He was looking for something, trying to see a certain reaction. "Of course, if you like to have guys do you instead, I know someone who would be happy to oblige you."  
  
Heero felt a jolt of pain. It spread through his brain, mild, but enough to bring his attention away from the growing heat in his body and how it pertained to the motion of Duo's hand on his cloth covered erection, and back to the priority of getting Duo Maxwell under cover of the safe house again.  
  
"I do not participate in sexual activities," Heero stated coldly and the pain receded like a wave on a shore as his body cooled along with his voice.  
  
Duo left off touching himself and came to a conclusion he didn't like. He sighed in defeat. "Can't blame a guy for trying," he said cryptically. "Okay, okay, back to the house. I guess I'm done here. You'll have to help me though. Raji had to almost carry me-"  
  
Heero bent and picked Duo up like a child without strain. Duo gasped, clutching at Heero's neck uncertainly. His mouth quirked. "Jeez! You're strong, Heero! I guess being asexual gives you a lot of extra time to work out, right?"  
  
Heero ignored the jab and easily carried Duo down the hill, across a field, through a narrow line of trees, and into the safe house, where he deposited him on the threadbare couch in the main reception room. Turning, he then opened a worn cabinet and pulled out a chess game. On the low table in front of the couch, he methodically began to set the game up.  
  
Duo grimaced at his aches and pains and something else. "Uh, Heero," he said tentatively, scratching his head in some embarrassment. "Not having any sex and all, you probably don't know... but a guy can get pretty, uh, well... after being with Raji, I really need to clean up, if you get my drift. Besides, I didn't think that you were serious about the chess game. I'm not very good at the game. I didn't have much of a chance to learn games like that on L2."  
  
"Your proficiency is not required," Heero replied as he leaned over Duo and picked him up again. Heading for the stairs that led to Duo's room, he concluded, "The game was only a vehicle for convincing you to return. Since you often expressed frustration and boredom, and tended to wander and engage in activities that endangered our cover, I was seeking to offer-"  
  
"Aww!" Duo cut in with a grin, "You felt sorry for me being bored and wanted to help out?"  
  
"Not precisely," Heero replied.  
  
Duo made a face. "I know, I know! You never do anything without a purpose, I think, and sympathy isn't in your vocabulary. For future reference, offering a game of chess suits Quatre and Trowa best. To entice me, you have to be much more basic."  
  
"Explain," Heero asked.  
  
Duo chuckled. "Oh, I won't make it that easy! I like surprises. You'll have to surprise me, make my life interesting, if you want to keep me from wandering. " He glared at Heero. "I'm still going out in the sunshine, though, but you did see that I was being careful about it?"  
  
Heero nodded, giving him that much.  
  
"So," Duo wondered, changing the subject as they entered his room and headed into the bathroom. "Where were you all of this time?"  
  
"Information gathering," Heero replied as he helped Duo to sit on the edge of the tub. He wasn't winded. He wasn't sweating. His voice was level and untroubled by having had to carrying a young man, nearly his own size, all of that distance.  
  
"What kind of information?" Duo prompted with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"The area and the troop movement around Deathscythe," Heero replied as he straightened. "Estimated materials needed for repairs, estimated time necessary to accomplish those repairs, and likely plans for retrieval of Deathscythe."  
  
Duo was relieved. "Then they haven't found him."  
  
"Obviously," Heero replied as he walked towards the door.  
  
"Uh, thanks, Heero, for checking on him for me," Duo felt the need to say.  
  
Heero didn't pause in his stride as he left the bathroom. He said, without turning, "It wasn't done for you."  
  
Duo laughed, "You are such a hard ass!"  
  
Heero thought about that as he returned to the reception room and sat on the couch by the chess board. He sat stiffly, as if he were at attention, hands deceptively lax, but ready to spring into action and grab whatever weapon was necessary. He waited, unused to the inaction, mind going over his findings in his head, trying to formulate a plan that would save Deathscythe.  
  
"I understand, Raji, but please be more discreet in the future," Quatre was saying as he came close to the door leading into the reception area. "You were supposed to watch Duo and keep him occupied. I will admit that bedding him was an odd choice of diversion, but it would have been more effective at keeping him indoors, if you had actually stayed indoors to engage in it."  
  
"Sorry, Master Quatre," Raji stammered in acute embarrassment. "I won't fail you again."  
  
Quatre's warm voice replied softly. "I know you won't, Raji. You're the best."  
  
"Thank you, Master Quatre."  
  
Quatre came in to the room then, balancing a cup of tea on a saucer and several small books, as he made his way towards the couch. He didn't notice Heero sitting there until he had carefully placed his burden on the low table. Then, Quatre, noticed the chessboard and Heero's knees beyond it. Looking up, he blinked at the rare sight of Heero Yuy sitting down and doing nothing.  
  
"Well, hello, Heero," Quatre greeted uncertainly. "Do you mind if I sit here and read?"  
  
"Specification manuals?" Heero wondered, trying to look at the one book that Quatre had picked up from the table.  
  
Quatre blushed and pressed the book against his heart as he slowly sat down. "Well, actually, one is an English romance and the other is poetry."  
  
Heero frowned. "How does reading material like that further the war effort?"  
  
Quatre put the book beside him on the couch and then bent to retrieve his tea. He sipped at it cautiously, thinking of a suitable reply. "It helps me to relax after a mission," He replied at last. "Improving my mental state also improves my readiness to complete another mission successfully." He eyed Heero, trying to read beneath the granite like expression on the young man's face. "What do you do to wind down?"  
  
"Four hours of exercise and two days downtime," Heero replied promptly.  
  
"Oh," Quatre said in surprise. "I didn't realize that you were sleeping in your room during that time. You really sleep for two entire days?"  
  
"It is necessary, since sleep during missions is usually unacceptable," Heero replied stonily.  
  
Quatre frowned. "You don't sleep during a mission?"  
  
"No," Heero replied and then fell silent.  
  
It was like sitting next to a statue. It made Quatre uncomfortable enough to change his plans. "Well, I think I'll go out back and sit on the porch to read-"  
  
"Shit!" A voice said above them on the landing. "Heero! Crap! Quatre! Somebody! Get me down these damn stairs!"  
  
Heero was up like an uncoiled spring before Quatre could put down his tea. Quatre watched, with wide eyes, as Heero took the steps, two at a time, until he had reached a limping Duo. Without hesitation, Heero picked Duo up and carried him back down the stairs effortlessly. Duo smirked at Quatre as Heero placed him on the couch by the chess board and next to the blonde Arabian.  
  
"You are freakin' determined to play this game, aren't you Heero?" Duo laughed. "I was just coming down for a snack. I didn't expect to find you waiting."  
  
Duo's hair was glistening from his shower. It hung in wets strands all around him, unbound and drying on a towel he had placed over his shoulders. He had changed into black shorts and a black tank top. His wiry limbs were pale, bruised, and knotted where they were still healing. They were stark against the black, making him appear abused. His grinning face was at all odds with that appearance.  
  
Heero grunted. "I informed you that the game itself was not of importance. Giving you factual information, that will give you understanding about the importance of being undercover at all times, is. There is also the matter of Deathscythe. We must set up a schedule of planning and training exercises that will assure our success in recovering your Gundam."  
  
Duo looked pointedly at Heero's empty hands. "I don't see any pencils, laptop, or maps."  
  
"I have perfect recall," Heero replied. "I will supply you with a written, detailed plan after our discussion."  
  
Duo glanced at Quatre. Quatre stared back, confusion on his face. Duo turned back to Heero. "So, if the game isn't important to accomplishing any of that, then why are we sitting here and not in the map room, drawing room, library, or even upstairs in your room?"  
  
Heero felt a flush. Why had he wanted their current position? The pain threatened. He fought with his mind, fought with a strange desire that wanted to ignore training and play a game of chess with Duo for no purpose, but to have the young man in his company. Heero fought with that desire. It was wrong. It wasted time. They had a mission to discuss. Duo's company would be attained either way, but playing the game of chess was more desirable. Why?  
  
Duo waited, not understanding that Heero was on the cusp of torment unimaginable. Heero saved himself with a thought thrown from his subconscious like a life line. He began to speak and relax, knowing that this purpose conformed with his training. "I want to test your sense of strategy," he replied with surety. "Chess is a game of tactics that requires forethought and problem solving. It will help me to tailor the parameters of our missions to better fit your abilities."  
  
Duo nodded seriously to all of that and then he smirked. "And you want to have some fun, right?" Heero began to protest, but Duo dismissed any protest with a wave of his hand. "Okay, Yuy, rack 'em up and I'll show you how Shinigami thinks."  
  
Quatre rose with his tea and books. "I think I'll find a quieter spot," he sighed and began walking upstairs to his room. He glanced back and saw Duo cackling gleefully and Heero glaring at the chess pieces, preparing to make his first move. He could feel an attraction between them as strong as a steel cable. It puzzled him. They were so different, so opposed to each other's personalities. He could see a great deal of sadness ahead and he ached for them.  
  
Quatre reached his room. After going inside and closing the door, he placed his tea and books on the bed side table and then took a moment to stretch languidly. Maybe a nap was more in order, he thought. He felt exhausted after watching Heero and Duo verbally fence with each other.  
  
Hands, strong, long, and demanding, closed around Quatre possessively. He knew instantly who it was, and he wasn't alarmed, as one hand slid down into the waist band of his pants, capturing his cock. That hand worked it harshly as the other held him against a hard, tall body, and an obvious erection pressed against his backside. Bending him over the edge of the bed, Quatre's pants were jerked down and that cock thrust inside of him, the large hand continuing it's torturous torment of his cock.  
  
Quatre wiggled uncomfortably. He kept himself lubed for just these sorts of attacks, long experience making him wise, but his attacker was still large and hard and he was small, narrow, and tight. The cock plundered him viciously, taking up an almost rutting, animalistic thrusting while that hot body stretched out over his back. Teeth grabbed Quatre's pink earlobe, and chewed. A tongue lapped and rasped at his face. That hand on his cock squeezed and then moved to wrap around the base of his balls. Holding him captive by them, Trowa Barton thrust as deep as he could and growled, "Love you," as he came in a spurting, hot gout inside of Quatre.  
  
Without relieving him, Trowa Barton was gone, door closing quietly behind him, and Quatre was straightening, pants about his ankles and cum and lube starting a slow trail down his thighs. He smiled warmly and shrugged as he slipped off his pants completely and then headed for the bathroom to clean up and to relieve a raging hard on. Trowa's brand of love making was always silent and unexpected, but Quatre had found a thrill in that, a great pleasure in being possessed and made submissive to that kind of base lust. Trowa never hurt him, never left without proclaiming his love, but the pilot of Heavyarms was an enigma still, an ever silent, watchful, mystery that Quatre hoped to solve one day. And he did want to solve it, because, he had discovered some time ago, he loved Trowa too.  
  
Quatre paused as he turned on the shower. He thought again of Heero and Duo, sitting in front of a chessboard and struggling to make sense out of what they were beginning to feel for each other. Quatre had thought it a strange, mismatched, perhaps doomed experiment between the two, but, who was he to judge such things? He was entertaining a lover who was a mere lustful shadow that he hadn't traded a dozen sentences with. He did hope for something more in the future. He didn't have any right to deny Duo and Heero that same kind of hope.  
  
"Checkmate!" Duo's voice crowed, rising up even through the floorboards.  
  
Quatre turned off the shower, straining for Heero's reply. "You cheated."  
  
"Yes, I did," Duo replied, "But that's who I am. I'm a cheater. I don't play by the rules, Heero. I don't let people tell me to do things a certain way as if there wasn't another way that might be better. I cheated and I won."  
  
Quatre could imagine Heero struggling with that concept and he smiled as he turned on the water again. He hoped that Duo's inventiveness would see them through their obstacles. He was certain that there was going to be a great deal of them.


	8. Red Glare

Duo landed an elbow into Heero's rock hard gut. Knowing how little effect that would have, he used the sharp point of that elbow to shove Heero back and off balance. Whirling, Duo landed a boot into Heero's chin and then danced backwards, ignoring the throbbing of his leg and arm. Heero staggered, but his eyes only blinked, as he adjusted for slight dizziness and faced Duo again, poised and ready to attack.  
  
Duo held up his hands, grinning. "Good enough?"  
  
Heero left off his battle stance and stood, relaxed, as relaxed as a panther prepared to spring at any moment. He nodded once. "You are ready to join me on the mission," he agreed.  
  
"All right!" Duo crowed, grinning from ear to ear and rubbing his hands together gleefully. "I can't wait to get Deathscythe back! When do we leave?"  
  
Heero picked up a hand towel from a bench and wiped sweat from his face. In a small garden at the back of the house, hidden well from above by trellises and overhanging trees, he hadn't pulled his moves with Duo. He was pleased that the pilot had recovered quickly, the advanced medical treatment worth all the trouble and danger he had risked to gain it for him, but something prickled on the edges of that pleasure. It puzzled Heero. It was slight worry and an infinitesimal amount of disappointment. The worry seemed to be tied to the danger aspect of the salvage mission, but the disappointment had a more disturbing source. Something in Heero didn't want Duo's down time to end. Cleared for active duty, Duo Maxwell would be off fighting the war again, and Heero would go back to working solo, their paths crossing seldom, if at all. The gathering of all the pilots in one safe house was an odd moment in time, not likely to be repeated. It was too dangerous.  
  
"As soon as possible," Heero replied, "The others are leaving the safe house. Wu Fei will be making strikes on an African Mobile suit factory and Trowa and Quatre will be working together to destroy a shipping depot. As soon as we accomplish our mission of retrieving Deathscythe, we will have to take it to a place where it can be repaired without notice. Quatre will coordinate his network to acquire us just such a place. You'll be on your own then. I have to return to our previous mission and finish the job."  
  
Duo looked worried as he plopped down on a wooden bench and brushed his chestnut bangs out of his face. "I'm all for getting Deathscythe and having time to bring him back up to speed, but that Oz plant wasn't a walk in the park, Heero. You were given me as a partner for a reason. It's a two man job."  
  
"Getting Deathscythe operational is your main priority," Heero felt it unnecessary to say. It was obvious. Another course of action was unthinkable. It was also obvious that Duo was trying to think of one.  
  
"Where will you make your base of operations?" Duo asked.  
  
"Classified," Heero replied curtly. "If you are captured and interrogated, such information given to the enemy might result in mission failure and my capture as well."  
  
"Yeah, I can see that," Duo replied, "but maybe you can see that letting me know your whereabouts, and keeping in contact with me or the others, might help you accomplish your mission if you run into trouble. We could come to help you."  
  
"Trouble...," Heero echoed with a frown.  
  
Duo arched an eyebrow mockingly, "Trouble, as in all that trouble that you caused in the first attempt. If I hadn't been there to save your ass-"  
  
"If you had not been there, there wouldn't have been 'trouble'," Heero snapped back.  
  
"You were snooping into my business!" Duo snarled and stood up, facing Heero squarely with hands on hips. "Talk about hot dogging...! We had everything in our hands and you threw it away so that you could find out something about me. You don't trust me, you don't trust the others, and I don't think you even trust yourself, Yuy! You need someone to watch your back, someone who'll save you when your insufferable self image of perfection loses some shine!"  
  
"Finding out about your past was necessary," Heero grated, hands going into fists. "If you had been allied with Oz, if you had been ready to tag me back to the other pilots-"  
  
"I don't think that was the reason at all!" Duo accused, eyes narrowing and face becoming suspicious.  
  
Heero was confused. His anger tied itself into knots and he didn't know how to reply to such a strange accusation. He stared and his stare seemed to confirm, in Duo's mind, that his guess was right.  
  
Duo said clearly and carefully. "I think you wanted to know more about me because you're 'interested'."  
  
"Interested?" Heero echoed, even more confused now.  
  
"As in 'has the hots'," Duo clarified and edged closer, almost nose to nose with Heero. "You do, don't you?"  
  
"I don't understand," Heero replied.  
  
"I think you do," Duo said with a wink and then leaned in and kissed Heero full on the lips, tongue sliding in past startled lips and filling Heero's mouth with warmth.  
  
Heero felt an electric shock of amazement shoot through him. He shivered, unable to react, unable to stop a wonderful heat building in his groin that had a direct connection to that warm tongue filling his mouth. He wanted it to end, he didn't want it to end. His hands began to reach out, but Duo's were already sliding around his slim waist and pulling him in close. Duo smirked against his lips, devilish, sexy smile on Shinigami's impish face so close to his own. When those hands cupped his ass cheeks and jerked him roughly against a swelling in Duo's pants, Heero involuntarily parted his knees to allow him between them. They staggered. Duo held him up.  
  
"Naughty, Heero Yuy," Duo breathed around his kiss as he retrieved his tongue, and then that tongue did a dance along Heero's lips before Duo sucked them into his mouth.  
  
Heero suddenly, 'wanted'. That reaction tangled with his confusion. He had never 'wanted' like that before. The pain had never let him get so far. It was the confusion, Heero knew, that was keeping it at bay, but that was short lived, as he knew it would be. As soon as Heero's thoughts came together and the 'need' and reaction to Duo crystallized, his mind understood what was happening.  
  
The pain lanced through Heero. He couldn't help a shriek as he recoiled, instinct making him try to escape the pain, even though it was inside of his head. The pain climbed to an unbearable height and then Heero mercifully blacked out, Duo's frantic voice shouting at him unintelligible words.  
  
+  
  
Someone was humming.... classical music. Quatre, Heero's mind deduced as he climbed back out of the darkness and found himself in his own room lying on his bed. He kept his eyes closed, letting that soothing hum be the back drop for his critical self examination.  
  
Body; bruises, headache, and a slight disorientation easily compensated for. Mind; stable and under control. Situation..... It was hard to consider that when such thoughts had put him in that bed to begin with. He settled, instead, for reaffirming certain truths to himself. Duo Maxwell was a pilot and a soldier in the war. He was NOT a friend. He was NOT a companion in any way. He was a tool, a weapon, for Heero to wield when the need arose. Duo's sexual promiscuity and unpredictability had effected Heero's performance. He wouldn't allow it to do so again. After Deathscythe was secured, Heero determined to avoid Duo Maxwell thereafter. Once he filed his report to Dr. J, Heero was certain that the Doctor would understand and not try to pair him with such a volatile personality again.  
  
"You're awake," Quatre said softly and Heero wondered how he had known. Heero had been very still, not even his breathing giving him away. The insightful Arabian sounded patient. "You don't have to pretend with me, Heero. I'm not your enemy."  
  
Heero opened his eyes and slid them sideways. Quatre was sitting in a chair by the bed, soft, blue eyes smiling into Heero's eyes. "I don't require your assistance," Heero replied hoarsely.  
  
"No?" Quatre seemed dubious. "You had, what Duo described, as a seizure of some sort. Are they routine occurrences?"  
  
"No," Heero replied. "When they do occur, they are not debilitating." He sat up and pushed the blankets aside. He wasn't wearing anything, but he wasn't self conscious.  
  
"Heero...," Quatre pursed his lips, not sure how much questioning Heero would tolerate. "It worries me that you and Duo are going on this salvage mission. Duo isn't as well as he would like everyone to believe and you... if you were to have one of these seizures at a critical point in the mission...":  
  
"It won't occur again," Heero replied grimly. "I have eliminated the cause."  
  
Quatre frowned. "What would that be?"  
  
Heero stood up in one fluid motion and reached for his clothes. He ignored aches, pains, and the dizziness. It was crucial that he readjust his mission plan at once to keep contact with Duo to a minimum. "Classified," Heero replied absently to Quatre and went to a side table where his laptop computer was waiting for him. Opening it up, he ignored Quatre as if he had ceased to exist.  
  
Quatre stood and sighed. "All right, I can see that you think that you know what you're doing. I'll go reassure Duo that you're okay."  
  
Heero frowned. "Why?"  
  
Quatre raised golden eyebrows. "You had a seizure at his feet, Heero. He doesn't know why. If I can't explain to him the reason, then at least I can reassure him that it wasn't his fault. He was very upset."  
  
"Assure him that I will be ready to go on the mission as planned," Heero threw over his shoulder as he booted up his plan on the laptop.  
  
"That wasn't what he was worried about, Heero," Quatre explained. "He was worried about you."  
  
Heero felt a slight bite of surprise and an odd, pleasant feeling, and then he shut both off brutally. "Inform Duo that I am fit for the mission," Heero replied without emotion. A dismissal. When Quatre sighed and complied, closing the door behind him, Heero gave his full attention to his mission plan, reworking it to the point where his participation was almost nonexistent.  
  
+  
  
"Headache again?"  
  
Duo groaned at Quatre. Stretched out on his bed, his face was hidden behind a cool, wet cloth. "If you open those curtains, I'll shoot you dead, Quat!"  
  
Quatre took his hands from the curtains and turned to return to Duo's bedside. He looked down at Deathscythe's pilot and sighed. "You and Heero are both too stubborn. You aren't ready to go on any missions. We still don't know why you're having these headaches and Heero..."  
  
"I can function with a headache, Quat, but I'm with you about Heero." Duo said thoughtfully, "He looked like he was in a lot of pain and then he just passed out."  
  
"You weren't very clear on what the two of you were doing before that happened," Quatre pointed out.  
  
Duo shrugged and then winced as the motion jogged his aching head. "We fought. I proved to Heero that I was ready to go get Deathscythe. He agreed. I... well, I guess I teased him. He's such a freakin' stone face. I wanted a reaction, any kind of reaction out of him, so I told him he was hot for me and I... well, I laid one on his lips. He was," Duo licked his own lips at the memory, "surprised. I think he was even warming up to the idea. I didn't think he was gay or bi, but, sometimes you never can tell about a guy. Just when I thought there was a normal, randy teenager under that stone, cold soldier exterior, he had that seizure. Scared the shit out of me, I can tell you!"  
  
Quatre frowned. "He said that he had them before and not to worry about it. He said that he was ready for the mission."  
  
"Like hell!" Duo retorted. He removed the cloth and rubbed his forehead, his amethyst eyes regarding Quatre. "After he botched the last mission, he had a seizure too. It didn't seem to me that it was controllable. Is Heero trying to tell you that they are?"  
  
"Yes," Quatre replied, "Though he didn't explain why or even what caused them."  
  
Duo considered what he knew. "Well, it seemed that he had a seizure after he botched the mission. This last seizure was after I, uhm, rubbed up against him and gave him a taste of my tongue."  
  
"Duo!" Quatre protested, shocked.  
  
Duo scowled. "Don't pretend to be prudish, Quatre! I know that you and Trowa are doing more than just looking at each other. My room is next to yours, remember? It sounded like he brought the circus to your room a few times."  
  
Quatre blushed. "That's private!"  
  
"Then stop making so much noise that I can't help hearing when you cum, Quat! I'm still trying to figure out why I hear that part after I hear Trowa leave."  
  
Quatre blushed even more. "If you're trying to shame me, might I remind you that you have more to be ashamed about. As I recall, you managed to deflower half of my servant girls in our last safe house!"  
  
Duo smiled. "I was gentle."  
  
"It seems like you're trying to do the same to the Maganacs," Quatre growled. "Be careful or Rashid will have you gelded. The younger men are like sons to him."  
  
Duo frowned uncomfortably at the notion, instinctively crossing his legs. "This is killing my head and we've left the subject completely," he complained. "You screw. I screw a lot. We don't need to talk about that. Let's get back to talking about Heero Yuy."  
  
Quatre crossed his arms over his chest. "We WERE talking about him. I think you were suggesting that stress might bring on a seizure? Stress from failing? Sexual stress? That doesn't follow. He's been in very dangerous, volatile situations and never had a problem."  
  
Duo put the cool towel back over his face, letting out a long breath. "Doesn't make sense, I know, but there has to be something tying the two incidences together. I just have to think about what that was. If Heero says he can control it, then there must a be a trigger, a trigger he can avoid."  
  
Quatre replied carefully, not sure how Duo would react, "I know a common factor in those two incidences. A common factor that Heero hasn't had to deal with before."  
  
Duo pulled off the wet rag and looked at Quatre in surprise. "What's that?"  
  
"You," Quatre replied.


	9. Down Below

"Cotton fibers?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Rubber?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I did kick you with my rubber soled boots. Are you sure it's not rubber?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Yes, it is, or yes, you know it isn't?"  
  
"...."  
  
"What does that mean, exactly?"  
  
"We hike from here."  
  
"Really? You said all of that with one disgruntled sigh?"  
  
"Baka!"  
  
Duo grinned as he shoved open the door of the transport and climbed out. Heero had driven it off the road and into a stand of pine trees. It was well hidden, but Heero was still breaking branches, placing them about the transport, and trying to do a better job.  
  
"They'll turn brown and someone will notice," Duo pointed out, even though he began to help as well.  
  
"You won't be gone that long," Heero replied. "Stick to the mission plan that I set out for you, and take Deathscythe to the hanger Quatre has set up for you West of here. You have the coordinates memorized; acknowledged?"  
  
"Yessss," Duo replied sarcastically as he finished with the branches and then pulled his pack out of the cab of the truck. They were both dressed in green and brown camouflage, but Duo was wearing dark sunglasses with a military cap hiding features Heero thought far too recognizable. His long braid was tucked into the back of his uniform, the lump under his clothing hidden by the pack he slung onto his shoulder. A good disguise for someone trying to pass for an Oz soldier scouting a forest. A lousy disguise for a slim, young man, with a memorable impish face and two unique purple eyes.  
  
"What'chya lookin' at, Yuy?" Duo wondered with a smirk. "I don't think I have time for another bump and grind, but, maybe, after the mission we could-"  
  
"There won't be any more contact between us," Heero stated coldly and turned away. That statement was met with unusual silence. He looked over his shoulder and saw Duo staring at him with a frown. Some pained emotion was quickly smoothed out and Duo lifted his happy- go- lucky mask again.  
  
"Your loss, Heero, " Duo retorted. "There are a lot of perks that come with being Duo Maxwell's buddy."  
  
"I work alone," Heero replied and hefted his own pack. He began to walk away, but Duo's startled voice stopped him.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
Heero said tightly. "You will complete your mission alone. Most of the Oz patrols have pulled out of the area. You are skilled at stealth. I don't believe that you will have any trouble retrieving Deathscythe. I have my mission to return to and complete."  
  
"Uh, Heero."  
  
"Duo?" Heero snapped impatiently. It was happening again, that feeling of not wanting to be separated from Duo, of worrying about him, of not wanting the loneliness and silence back in his life. He throttled it hard.   
  
Duo was struggling to admit something, but masculine pride was getting in the way. He finally said, "I was planning on you coming along and giving me a hand."  
  
"What led you to believe that I would be accompanying you?"  
  
Duo sounded angry now. "I don't know, maybe all the planning and personal time you put into the mission! Maybe that was stupid of me, assuming you'd-"  
  
"Are you saying that you are not competent to accomplish the mission alone?" Heero interrupted, cutting to the quick.  
  
Duo hissed angrily but then he was forced to admit, "Yeah, I have to. I was in my deathbed not too long ago, Yuy! You can't expect me to go running up and down big rocks like a damn mountain goat, carrying a pack weighed down by tools and parts, and not need help!"  
  
Heero turned and closed the few steps between them. He glared into Duo's eyes. "You compromised this mission by giving me false information! If you are unfit, there isn't any choice but to scrub the mission and return to base of operations."  
  
"Unless you go with me and help me," Duo corrected. "How long can it take, Heero? A few hours hike and we're there! I'll get Deathscythe operational and you can leave me after that. I'll make hamburger out of anyone that gets in my way."  
  
"No, unacceptable!" Heero seethed.  
  
Duo blinked. "Is it?" he wondered. "Why?" he pressed harder, sensing a sudden vulnerability in Heero and wondering what it was. "Explain your reasoning."  
  
Heero couldn't without giving up personal information. His training wouldn't allow that. "We are incompatible," was as much as he could divulge.  
  
Duo narrowed his eyes. "You don't like me, is that what you're saying?"  
  
"That isn't a mission consideration," Heero retorted.  
  
"Good," Duo replied, "because I wouldn't believe you if you told me that you didn't like me. You're as cold as a rock in space, Yuy, but I can still tell you like being around me."  
  
"My likes and dislikes aren't-"  
  
"-a consideration," Duo finished. "Ah- hah! Then you aren't denying it." He grinned. "That's okay, Heero, I like you too, a lot, as a matter of fact. I don't know why either, because you certainly aren't Mr. Personality and you aren't my type. I like willing and able, not cold and impossible to get." He held out his hands, as if inviting Heero closer. He looked a bit embarrassed and Heero realized that Duo was telling the truth and, while he said that he didn't lie, he was more likely to evade a question than offer the truth. "See?" Duo continued. "I can admit that I find you likable. Can't you do the same for me?"  
  
"No," Heero growled. "This conversation doesn't serve a purpose. Your inability to carry out the mission should be the topic."  
  
Duo sighed and dropped his hands. "Okay, fishy, if that's the way you want it," he winked, "but both of us know you spread your legs for me."  
  
Heero felt the bite of anger. He almost raised a fist, wanting to plow it into Duo's smug face. He held himself back with an effort. Duo had managed to hit something sensitive deep inside of him and it hurt. It was Duo's attitude, his cheep treatment of that moment in the garden when Heero had felt something strong between them, something he didn't yet understand, but that he felt strangely protective of, that bothered him, hurt him, and made him angry.  
  
"It's not important!" Heero growled and knew he was saying it to himself. "Stop thinking about it. Stop talking about it. Focus on the mission. The mission is everything. Bodily weakness is not to be tolerated. Emotions are a liability. I am a weapon. Duo Maxwell is only a tool!"  
  
"Huh?" Duo was looking pale and startled, eyes wide. He blinked and then sucked in a long breath before saying, "Geez! What was all of that? Are you such a fanatic to the cause that you don't get that the ends don't justify the means? Or didn't the people who brainwashed you get it? I'm not a 'tool'. You're not a 'weapon'. We may have to sacrifice our lives so that the colonies and Earth can have freedom and peace, but I at least am not willing to sacrifice my humanity too. I'm Duo Maxwell, a living, breathing, feeling person. I bleed red blood, I feel pain, and I have a lot of emotions. I still get the job done, Yuy, and it doesn't get in my way of blowing up Oz ass. " Duo hitched his pack up on his shoulder, "I'm sorry I wasn't straight with you about my physical condition. I guess I'm just a proud, inefficient, frail human who wants his big toy back. So, I need your help. I promise not to grope you or inflict you with my friendship, if that's the way you want it, but we have to do this together, okay?"  
  
Heero much preferred an angry Duo to the friendly one. It made him angry in return and eliminated the danger of unwanted reactions and emotions. He still had to wonder how Duo was able to shake his perfect control. The pain had always been a deterrent. It had made him a sexual and emotional eunuch. That Duo could reach him, make him feel things, make his body and mind ignore the threat of that hellish agony, by simply smiling, by simply being friendly... but he couldn't think about that, couldn't wonder why, couldn't solve the mystery without courting the pain again. It was better to be angry and not analyze why an imp faced young man with purple eyes could shake the very foundation of his training as if it had all been built on sand.  
  
Heero nodded curtly, still scowling darkly, still allowing himself to be angry at the position he had been forced into, of escorting a weak Duo to reclaim a Gundam he, perhaps, wasn't fit to pilot.  
  
Duo recaptured his grin, but it was edged. He was still angry too, but unwilling to show it. He was used to men and women falling at his feet and falling under the spell of his charm without fail. Heero had rebuffed him in the worst way and he was stung and floundering. He didn't like someone stripping him of his humanity with a few words and stripping his h- . Duo froze on that thought. He was thinking, heart as well, but was unwilling to follow through with it. He cut it off and buried it. Heero had been just another chance for a conquest, another willing body in his stable, another fuck, pure and simple, right? It was a lie, but Duo didn't have any compunction about lying to himself.  
  
"Well?" Duo prompted, "Go with me and make sure I get my Gundam out safely, or go about your business and take the chance that I'll collapse in the forest, get captured by Oz patrols, and spill my guts about where Deathscythe is."  
  
Heero's hand twitched to his gun, but he didn't draw it. Duo's face tightened, knowing what that motion meant. Heero was ready to kill to keep him silent, but he was more willing to suffer Duo's dangerous presence and make sure his mission was successful.  
  
Duo forced a grin and turned to begin walking into the forest. Heero followed without a word. Duo's grin became less forced and he relaxed. "Polyester socks? Maybe they made you pass out?"  
  
"I wasn't wearing polyester socks," Heero replied, confused that Duo was returning to their earlier topic, as if the entire conversation afterwards had not occurred.  
  
"Neither was I," Duo admitted thoughtfully.  
  
Maddening, Heero thought, and wondered if Duo was mad. "Why did you draw that conclusion then?" he wondered.  
  
"Well, you won't tell me the real reason you had a fit and passed out," Duo explained, "Even though you know what caused it. I thought, if I irritated you enough with stupid guesses, you would crack and just tell me."  
  
"Then why reveal your plan?" Heero wondered, even more confused.  
  
"Because I just decided that it would be far more irritating to let you in on the plan," Duo chuckled. "So... bright sunlight?"  
  
"There wasn't any," Heero replied.  
  
"That's right, there wasn't," Duo agreed. "How about-"  
  
"You're plan isn't going to work," Heero interrupted irritably. "I won't reveal any information about myself to you."  
  
Duo glanced back over his shoulder, grin genuine now. "You already have."  
  
"Explain?" Heero demanded sharply.  
  
"You say you don't want to be with me, but here you are," Duo explained. "You say I'm just a tool, but, if you really thought that, you wouldn't be replying to my stupid conversation. You have some feelings inside of you Heero as much as you try to deny it."  
  
"I'm not denying it," Heero replied, "but I can't allow them to effect me in any way."  
  
"Did they give you a choice?" Duo asked in a voice heavy with sympathy and some small horror.  
  
"Choice?" Heero echoed.  
  
"Did they come up to you and say, 'Hey, Heero, do you mind stripping away everything that makes life worth living to be our Gundam pilot?' or did they just do it?" Duo wondered.  
  
"There wasn't a choice," Heero replied and then said noting at all, refusing to listen or be drawn into any more of Duo's conversation. It made him angry, Duo's words, but it wasn't Duo his anger was directed at. There were better targets, targets from his past and his present, the men who had molded him into what he was now.  
  
Duo was rubbing at his forehead. Heero noticed it, as he noticed everything with machine like precision. He suffered from the headaches still, Heero surmised and began to wonder if the doctors had purposely made a mistake that would kill the pilot of Deathscythe slowly. Darkly, Heero appreciated that kind of stealth, but again worry gnawed at his subconscious. Logically he thought that the war couldn't afford losing a Gundam pilot, but losing Duo in general twisted Heero's gut unpleasantly. It made his anger grow and still it wasn't directed at Duo, but at a group of doctors. Heero felt the reward feeling kick in, flooding his system in response to the anger, but it wasn't indulgent. Too much anger could jeopardize a mission as well.  
  
Duo made the hike to Deathscythe without trouble, but he was sweating and flushed. The camouflaged Gundam made him grin and he patted a gundanium leg affectionately, but he was also sitting down and putting his head in his hands.  
  
"J-Just give me a few minutes, k, Heero?" Duo breathed through what must have been great pain.  
  
Heero nodded as he began to unpack Duo's tools and parts, laying them out in a methodical manner and making an inventory. When he was done, looking up, he saw that Duo had fallen asleep sitting up, his face very pale and beaded with sweat.  
  
Heero straightened and slowly reached out to touch Duo's skin. It was clammy and Duo didn't react. Duo was a soldier. He should have reacted, should have at least drawn a weapon. He hadn't just gone to sleep, Heero surmised. He had fainted.  
  
Mission failure. Heero throttled that realization and refused to accept it. Duo would rest and wake up, ready to pilot Deathscythe. He simply needed time. meanwhile, Heero could make the Gundam fit for travel.  
  
Stretching Duo out on the ground on a bed of dead leaves, Heero found himself brushing Duo's sweating bangs away from his face. Relaxed, Duo looked very young. He had a few scars, one especially under his wide lips. War related or something from his childhood? Heero touched it, smoothing a finger along it's tiny surface. Duo shivered under that touch, but he didn't wake up.  
  
Heero withdrew his hand, suddenly curious about Duo's past. He wanted to know more about Duo and it wasn't just for mission purposes. The pilot intrigued him with his knowledge of people, his stealth, his wiles, and his ability to manipulate others, Heero especially. It was only right that Heero wonder at what life training had given Duo those skills, wasn't it? if Duo died, then all of that information would be lost to him. The mystery that was Duo Maxwell would never be solved and Heero found that he very much wanted to solve it.  
  
"Don't die," Heero whispered, ignoring the threat of pain in his own head. He mollified it by leaving Duo to work on Deathscythe, but his thoughts didn't leave with his body.


	10. Rewire

He still wasn't awake. Heero crouched by Duo and checked his pulse. It felt ragged. Duo's skin was very pale and a slight sheen of sweat was on his forehead, his chestnut bangs plastered there. When Heero saw him shiver, he pulled out a thermal blanket from his pack and unfolded it thoughtfully.  
  
Repairs to Deathscythe were not complete and night was falling fast in the mountainous forest. It shouldn't have happened. Heero had prepared for every eventuality, done computerized mock ups of the crash, estimated the damage, he felt, to the closest degree of accuracy. His guesses, he had found, had been extremely accurate, the parts he had told Duo to pack exactly what was needed. The time table he had set should have been met.  
  
Heero covered Duo with the blanket and then stood, looking about at the darkening forest and then up at Deathscythe in its camouflage. Heero had prepared for everything, except Duo. The unpredictability of the pilot had caught him off guard again. Duo had modified Deathscythe, made security lock outs on the computer controls, and changed panels over sensitive areas to impassible ones guarded by code locks. Duo had learned his lesson well after the first time they had met and Heero had stolen parts off of Deathscythe for his own Gundam.  
  
Heero knew that he could bypass all of Duo's security efforts, but his skin crawled when he imagined the time it would take. He had set up his parameters and he was driven to keep within them.  
  
"Hn, Heero," Duo suddenly murmured.  
  
Heero looked down, hopeful, and then kneeled by Duo when he saw the glitter of amethyst eyes under drooping lids.  
  
"Am I dying again?" Duo wondered in a hoarse voice.  
  
Heero checked Duo's pulse, fingers touching, shivering, clammy skin. "Yes," he concluded grimly.  
  
Duo chuckled darkly. "Don't pull any punches, K?" He sighed. "Well, at least it's not in the mud this time."  
  
"The doctors must have left something undone," Heero told him. "Something that would kill slowly, so that I wouldn't kill them for failing at the hospital."  
  
"The headaches," Duo surmised and then went quiet.  
  
"Yes," Heero replied. "The hike here must have stressed you enough to cause some internal failure, accelerating the damage."  
  
"What a crappy way to die," Duo growled weakly. "I should have gone down with Deathscythe the first time and taken as many Oz soldiers as possible."  
  
"That would have been preferable," Heero agreed.  
  
Duo managed a grin. "Hah! Something in common! We both want to die in a blaze of glory. Next we'll be getting married and having test tube babies."  
  
"Duo," Heero interrupted, keeping his confusion at bay with an effort and wondering if Duo was sinking into mental instability. Marriage? Children? Why was he even thinking such things now? In a few hours, maybe half way through the night, he would be dead. His pulse was that ragged and he was showing the first stages of shock.  
  
"Yeah, I know, shut up," Duo retorted and rubbed at his head, the left side above his ear. "It's here," he said, "Whatever they did to me. It's like a goose egg, maybe full of blood."  
  
"Hn," Heero grunted and felt at it. It was swollen there and it did feel like blood was collecting under the skin. It was confirmation of the end. "Give me the lock codes so that I can repair Deathscythe," Heero ordered.  
  
"You're going to let me die alone?" Duo asked quietly. "If you're up there, fixing Deathscythe, then I'll be down here, breathing my last. "  
  
"It's necessary," Heero replied and hated those two words. It was as if someone else was saying them, someone he didn't like.   
  
"You'll take good care of Deathscythe for me?" Duo wondered.  
  
"I will retrieve it," Heero replied. Duo nodded and gave him the codes. Afterwards, he closed his eyes and tried to deal with his pain, one hand caressing the gold cross under his coat.  
  
The parameters of the mission beat through Heero's mind like a drumbeat, demanding his attention, demanding that he cut off any thoughts of the dying pilot. Duo was acting like a good soldier, for once, knowing he was done and that the mission still had to be completed. It was a dedication to the cause that Heero had doubted that Duo possessed. To see it now, that tense, pale face, that stiff, determined lip caught between teeth to hold back any moans of pain, caused Heero to experience a rush of respect for Duo and... regret... and... Heero closed his eyes, steeled himself against prickling, warning pain, and left Duo where he lay.  
  
Heero made his repairs, but the entire time, he felt as if he were moving through mud, his thoughts not wholly on the task. He kept glancing down into the deepening darkness, trying to pick out the lonely figure of a dying young man.  
  
Why? Heero wondered to himself. He had never cared for anyone before, not even the man who had raised him as an assassin, or Dr. J. who had given his life purpose after he had been left to fend for himself. To worry about an individual was completely foreign to Heero Yuy, a weakness he wanted to reject, but couldn't.   
  
Memories of Duo at the school surfaced as Heero made last adjustments. Smiling Duo, laughing Duo, and joking Duo. Duo had fit in, made friends, played the part of normal teenager to a tee. Heero, trained in stealth, trained in infiltration techniques, had been the sore thumb, the fish out of water, the mystery everyone had wanted to solve. Heero had felt shyness for the first time, uncertainty, confusion, and... longing. He admitted it to himself cautiously and tried to analyze it. The conclusion was unmistakable no matter how many times Heero tinkered with variables. Duo was a good soldier, despite his emotions. He understood the enemy and excelled where Heero failed because of the humanity that Heero and Dr. J had dismissed as a liability. It hadn't made him weak. He was strong, dying in the darkness alone to allow Heero to complete his mission.  
  
Heero had never before questioned his role, questioned the things he denied himself; had been told to deny himself. What else had there been to tempt him to another course of action? Nothing. Heero didn't have friends, didn't have family, had never become attached to anything in his life. Duty and sacrifice had filled the emptiness of heart and soul and had given a point to a pointless life.  
  
The war was still all encompassing for Heero. It was still the most important thing in his life. Too many people were counting on him and the other pilots for that not to be true. Still, Heero thought as he gazed down at the darkness where Duo lay, Duo had cracked his impenetrable shell and Heero didn't think he could, or wanted to mend it. Duo had shown him another way, a way to win the war, yet have some life too and something else, something he couldn't yet acknowledge that had to do with the braided pilot; something that gave him a sudden reason for wanting back his humanity.  
  
Dr. J had been wrong, Heero knew as he put away his tools. He had believed that a perfect soldier should be emotionless. The lack of family, loved ones, and friends was a plus, keeping a soldier's mind on the mission, not on staying alive to return to companions or a fulfilling personal life. Dr. J had called that distraction and weakness. Heero remembered the man telling him that he, Heero, had a soft spot deep inside and that it was best to stamp it out completely before it affected his performance. Heero had found it hard to comply. Dr. J had offered an alternative.  
  
Heero's hand went to the back of his neck. He felt the thin line of an implant just under his skin, tendrils sunk deep to certain parts of his brain. Heero's first guardian had told him to follow his emotions. The man, himself, never had, offering Heero rough, unfeeling companionship at the best of times, but perhaps he had offered the advise out of regret and a realization that he had made the wrong choice, just as Dr. J had made the wrong choice.  
  
Follow your emotions.  
  
Heero picked up a small, hand laser with a very fine beam. He was feeling a rush, an epiphany, and the pain jolted him, worse than ever before, in an attempt to destroy it. "No," Heero grated, denying it, and began cutting into the back of his neck with the laser.   
  
+  
  
"Heero?"  
  
Heero took the command chair, slipping on the straps even as he began to check instruments.  
  
"Heero?" Duo's weak voice said again. "W-What's going on?"  
  
Tucked behind the command chair, wrapped in a blanket and head pillowed with Heero's jacket, Duo was pale and ghost like. His eyes focused with an effort, narrowed at the back of the command chair, and then saw the back of Heero's head as he leaned to his right to power up systems. He was covered in blood, a red stained bandage taped to the back of his head.  
  
"What the Hell happened?" Duo demanded. "Were we attacked? Did you have an accident?"  
  
"Neither," Heero grunted.  
  
"Heero," Duo complained weakly. "I'm not in any shape for twenty questions! You're bleeding from a head wound, we're in Deathscythe, and I'm not dead yet when I should be. What's going on?"  
  
Heero finished with the controls and then looked at Duo. "You were lying still and the cold slowed down your blood flow. You are still dying, but more slowly. Deathscythe is now operational enough to reach the transport. I will load it and then-"  
  
"Go to a doctor!" Duo cut in. "Heero, I'm done! I'm dying! Forget about me. I want- I want you to take care of yourself."  
  
Heero stared at Duo, perplexed, not sure what to say or how to react, his body tensed for pain even though he knew the cause of it was now gone. "Mission parameters have changed," he replied, feeling how inadequate that sounded.  
  
"Changed?" Duo was sinking back into the blanket, his strength giving out, yet his determination still burning in his eyes. "I'll say it's changed! Mission scrubbed, is more accurate. Who would have thought that a hike through the woods could end like this?"  
  
Mission scrubbed. Heero closed his eyes, every fiber of his being tensed, feeling the failure of Duo's words. "Tell me, "Heero breathed, "Tell me how- how you feel about the mission being scrubbed. Tell me how you accept it so easily, talk about it as if it were nothing much. I don't- I need to understand."  
  
"Uh," Duo floundered, seeing Heero's distress and not understanding it. He tried to reply, tried to concentrate on the right answer, sensing that Heero needed to hear it, that the man needed the comfort it could provide. "I guess, I just accept it, because things like that are bound to happen. There's always variables you can't account for. The thing is to not give up, but to return and accomplish the mission better prepared."  
  
"That can cost lives," Heero replied darkly.  
  
"Yeah," Duo agreed. "but, Heero, nobody's perfect, nobody is infallible. I know that. You should know that. This isn't a failure, just a set back. If you give up, if you beat yourself up about it and not try again, then you can call yourself a loser and anything else you want. Haven't you ever failed before?"  
  
"Yes, with you," Heero replied tightly.  
  
Duo thought about that, thought about the emotion behind that statement. "Not before that? Huh, no wonder you want to get away from me. I ruined your perfect record. Guess I did it again, too."  
  
"You are emotional. You make mistakes. You learn, better prepare, and return to complete the mission," Heero said as if he were reciting a lesson.  
  
"Yes," Duo replied, mystified. He almost felt as if he were speaking to a child, a child set adrift and not sure what was up or down.  
  
"What is your failure rate?" Heero demanded.  
  
Duo rubbed at his aching head. His vision was going blurry. He didn't want to play question and answer. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep. His concern for Heero kept him from doing that. "Uh, well, sometimes you fail the next time too, but, like I said, nobody's infallible. Sometimes, the other guy is just better than you."  
  
"I find that unnaceptable," Heero replied.  
  
"Well, sorry, but it's a part of life, Heero," Duo sighed. "You just had a long lucky streak. It was bound to come to an end sooner or later, with or without me."  
  
"I was taught, "Heero explained, "that emotions are a liability. I was taught that, if I trained and prepared meticulously, eliminating all distractions and dedicating myself to the cause, it would be impossible for me to fail a mission."  
  
"That's... That's just so wrong," Duo replied softly, finally beginning to understand Heero. "Let's not get into how you should never give up your humanity, I don't think I have enough time. I will say that emotions are a plus, in a mission, as well as living as normally as possible. Those two things help you to understand the enemy, Heero. How can you prepare for all variables if you don't know how someone will react, how they will think, how they will plan based on how they feel, how much they are afraid, or how much they have, in their personal life, at risk? I infiltrated that base to get those codes, not by hugging the shadows and killing anyone who discovered me, but by blending in, being one of them, talking to them, understanding them... It makes me a better soldier, Heero."  
  
Heero nodded. "I have come to that conclusion."  
  
"Just now?"  
  
"One hour, twenty four minutes, and eight seconds ago," Heero rattled off stiffly.  
  
Duo's eyes were wide. "Well, you know what they say, sometimes a person can change all in an instant. You're just logical enough to come to a conclusion quickly. So, what made you reconsider your position in the middle of a recovery mission?"  
  
Heero turned back around, almost fearful, and gripped Deathscythe's controls in white knuckled hands. No pain, no rein now on feeling things he wanted to feel. Knowing that Duo's way was the better one was something different from actually putting it into practice. Heero could change his thinking all in an instant, but not his training which made some things ingrained and automatic.  
  
"Heero?" Duo said, curious at Heero's sudden withdrawal. "I don't have much time left, ya know? You better finish the conversation. I won't be around to pick it up later." Heero couldn't reply. Duo made an exasperated sound. "Okay, forget it. What's it matter anyway? After I'm gone, I guess knowing the inside of Heero Yuy's head won't be important. What is important, is that you get to a doctor. As soon as you stow Deathscythe, you will go for help. Got that?"  
  
It was supposed to be an order said in a strong commanding voice, but it came out weak and thin. Heero remained silent as he put Deathscythe into motion. He wasn't following any orders but his own now.  
  
"Okay, go ahead and fucking ignore me, Yuy!" Duo rasped. "I'll just shut up now and breath my last, mad at you, and-and "  
  
"Don't die," Heero said harshly and his voice had the commanding snap that Duo's had lacked.  
  
Duo found a slow grin that was both sickly and amused, "I don't think I can follow that order, Heero, but I'll try my best."


	11. Cross Hairs

"Okay," Duo whispered as Heero lifted him into the passenger side of the stolen sports car, "What's the plan? You do have a plan, don't you, because, at this point, you're looking a bit crazy."  
  
"You are baggage. Stay silent. I will implement all parts of the new mission," Heero told him briskly. He closed the door quietly and then moved around the car to climb into the driver's seat. The engine was running, Heero having already hacked the computerized controls. He added, as he pulled away from the curb of a well to do neighborhood, "I am not crazy."  
  
"News flash, Heero," Duo croaked as he leaned back into the leather seat and closed his eyes. "Crazy people don't know they're crazy."  
  
"Save energy. Keep still. Otherwise, you will die before we reach our destination," Heero ordered sharply.  
  
"He cares!" Duo breathed with a mocking smile.  
  
"I do," Heero replied, very low and hardly to be heard.  
  
Duo started, eyes opening again and going wide. "What?"  
  
"Sleep," Heero told him. "You need to lower your heart rate."  
  
"Won't do any good," Duo replied, but he was already drifting off. When he began breathing evenly, Heero reached over and touched his arm. His skin was cold, even though Heero had turned on the heat. Transfusion, he thought. Internal bleeding. Saline solution. Antibiotics. Surgeon expert in... Heero narrowed eyes at the swelling just visible through Duo's hair. A surgeon expert in vascular surgery. He kept adding to his mental notes as he drove through the city. Once he had the list complete, then he would formulate a plan for acquiring and implementing them.  
  
The trained soldier in Heero complained. He ignored it. He had given his mission to infiltrate the base, and acquire the new computer codes, to Trowa. He had given Deathscythe to Quatre. Both of the pilots, showing up separately at his specified meeting place, had been confused and stunned at Heero's behavior. They hadn't questioned him though. Neither of them had wanted Duo to die. Duo was well liked by them, unlike Heero.  
  
Heero had felt awkward, but not wrong in his decision. To continue the war, he now required more than a mission and an urge to be perfect. He needed a friend. He needed Duo to keep smiling at him and turning his world upside down. Heero had been like a blind man, unaware of his colorless life. Duo had shown him the spectrum and Heero didn't want to return to his colorless world.  
  
Heero's eyes blurred. He blinked and wiped a hand across them. He was exhausted and burning out the control module of his implant had not been without some damage. It wasn't only Duo who needed some medical care.  
  
Heero pulled into the emergency room parking lot of a hospital and abandoned the car. Carrying Duo, with Duo's signature braid tucked out of sight, Heero felt a strange, familiar feeling, as he went through some of the same motions that had gained him entrance to the last hospital that he had taken Duo to.  
  
"Where...?" Duo's faint voice came from the gurney where Heero had placed him. They had just rolled into an empty operating room. The unfamiliar surroundings almost made Duo panic, until Heero looked down into his face and showed him the anesthesia he was about to administer.  
  
"Are you a surgeon too?" Duo croaked. It was all he could manage to pant out through the pain.  
  
"Saving time," Heero explained. "I will call a surgeon and a nurse to this room from the roster that I acquired at the front desk. While they are in route and preparing, I will make sure that you are under. We have a narrow window before we are discovered. I have calculated the time required for each step of this mission."  
  
"You don't know what's wrong with me," Duo chuckled weakly. "How can you calculate the variables?"  
  
"There are many," Heero agreed, not liking the imprecision either.  
  
"Crazy," Duo muttered.  
  
"Unavoidable," Heero corrected and then administered the drug. He counted the dosage he had seen the nurse give Duo the first time he had been operated on. It took effect very quickly. Duo's expression of agony smoothed out and he sighed as his eyes glazed and then closed.  
  
Heero felt a strong emotion. He reflexively braced for pain. It didn't come and his body twitched, confused. The strong emotion continued and Heero felt a wetness in his eyes. He reached up and touched tears. He had never been allowed to get that far with an emotion since the device had been implanted. It hurt almost as much as the pain, that emotion, and Heero almost wished that he had the device once again to stop it. He wasn't even sure what he was feeling. All that he knew, was that it had to do with Duo and that it wasn't fear.  
  
Heero called the surgeon and the nurse. While he waited, he seated himself, went through supplies to find a sealer, some bio gel, and an antibiotic, and reached back to take care of his own injury. His fingers encountered fresh blood and a ragged wound. His exertions had caused it to unclot and open up. The steady flow of blood would quickly weaken him. Heero worked quickly to stop it.  
  
When the surgeon and the nurse arrived, hurrying to what they thought was an emergency, they were both stunned to meet up with Heero's gun as soon as they passed the door. Wound patched and ready for any trouble now, Heero herded surgeon and nurse towards Duo. His dark, intense eyes spoke volumes, making it unnecessary for him to threaten, "Head injury above the ear. Operate or die."  
  
The surgeon, a round, robust, take charge type of man, gave Heero a slow look up and down and then he bent over Duo. He made a quick diagnosis and then confirmed it with a few instruments. "Not bad... but life threatening if left untreated for much longer. You should have come sooner, soldier."  
  
"Unavoidable," Heero responded. "Operate."  
  
"You have blood all over you," The nurse, a petite, brown haired woman, with bright blue eyes, realized. "Do you need treatment?"  
  
Heero glared. "No. Operate. Now."  
  
"You can relax," the surgeon told him. "We're both colony sympathizers. We want to see your friend pull through as much as you do."  
  
Heero didn't allow himself to believe that. He kept his guard up and replied, "If you hurt him so that he dies later, I will return and make you die, painfully."  
  
The surgeon paled. "He has pressure on his brain. A damaged artery. When I said, 'Not bad', I meant, not much of an operation to correct the injury. That's different than 'he'll pull through.'  
  
"You will use all means necessary to make certain he 'pulls through', " Heero told him.  
  
"I'm not God, but I won't do less than my best, I assure you," the surgeon promised.  
  
The nurse began prepping Duo. She discovered the long braid. "Pretty. What's his name?"  
  
"Shinigami," Heero replied.  
  
The nurse started, "Death?"  
  
"The God of Death," the surgeon corrected with a snort of humor. "If we have the God of Death on our operating table, we can't fail, can we?"  
  
The operation began. Heero leaned against a wall, watching carefully. Duo lost a patch of hair to the operation. Heero winced, knowing how much he would hate that. Better a patch of hair, than losing him, Heero thought, and that strong emotion overwhelmed him again, bringing tears to his eyes and constricting his chest. What was it? Why did it hurt so much?!  
  
"So young," the nurse murmured. "Just a couple of kids. This war is so terrible!"  
  
"They aren't children," the surgeon replied as he finished up and sealed the wound, "Not any longer."   
  
The nurse cleaned Duo up tenderly and then both the nurse and the surgeon backed away. "He's finished," the surgeon told Heero, "but I don't know how much damage the pressure of the accumulating blood caused before you arrived here. Who ever did this... it's a war crime if I ever saw one. Without treatment, your friend would have taken days more to die, in great pain, with the pressure destroying his brain."  
  
Heero approached the operating table. He had to pass both nurse and surgeon to reach it. "Thank you," he said sincerely and then struck out quickly, catching both doctor and nurse with the hard edge of both hands before they could react. Both of them slumped to the floor, unconscious. He should have killed them instead, Heero thought, but he was allowed compassion now and gratitude. They owed their lives to it.  
  
Heero leaned over Duo. There was a quarter sized bare patch just over his ear and a thin red line where the skin had been sealed. Such a small thing to have almost robbed him of Duo. It could still rob him of Duo, Heero corrected himself grimly. The doctor hadn't made any promises, even threatened with death. The surgeon may have saved Duo's life, but if his mind was gone, crushed by the weight of blood, then he was as good as dead.  
  
Heero caught his hands shaking as he transferred Duo onto the gurney again and covered him up. Heero clenched them. Not now, he snapped at himself. Now wasn't the time to let his emotions surface entirely. They were too confusing, too unknown. When both he and Duo were settled in one of Quatre's many safe houses, then would be the time to explore those emotions, to let them go entirely, and to learn what it was to feel them.   
  
"Help you with that?" a tall, congenial young man asked. He was wearing an orderly uniform. Heero couldn't refuse. His own, stolen uniform, wasn't higher in rank.  
  
"Yes," Heero replied. "He's to be transferred to another hospital for a special operation."  
  
"Really?" The orderly looked down at Duo, noting Duo's pale features. "Looks like he needs some blood. Didn't they want him to actually make it to the next hospital?"  
  
"Special blood type," Heero replied. "Bio rejection. There wasn't a choice."  
  
"Poor bastard!" the young man said as he grabbed the foot of the gurney and began pulling it towards the ambulance exit. "I've seen that look before. They usually get it right before they slap a toe tag on them and give them to me to take down to the morgue. That's where I thought you were headed."  
  
Heero felt a wave of anger. He didn't want to hear things like that just then. It made his hands shake even more. When the orderly glanced back at Heero's silence, he started.  
  
"Uh, sorry, man! I didn't mean to upset you!" he was genuinely apologetic. "I've never seen you around here before. Are you new? I guess, when you seen it all, like I have, you develop a thick skin when it comes to patients dying. My motto is, be nice, but don't get personal. That way it doesn't keep ripping you up inside every time someone gets a sheet over their face. Some days, it's so bad, I just wish they had emotionless robot nurses to care for everyone. At least they wouldn't feel anything when they serve a guy lunch, see pictures of his grand kids, and then see him laid out for an autopsy."  
  
"That would not be better," Heero told him with an intensity that made the orderly stop and stare. "I know."  
  
"OOOkay!" The orderly said in a drawn out manner that let Heero know that he was questioning Heero's stability. "Let's get this guy... it is a guy isn't it? Let's get him to the ambulance before he really does kick off. Then someone else can worry about it."  
  
Heero nodded, glad that Duo wouldn't be left in that man's care and almost glad when he knocked the man unconscious between the long line of ambulances. It was a simple matter then, to leave the gurney behind, wrap Duo in a coat, and duck behind cars in the nearby parking lot. Choosing a nondescript car with a wide backseat, Heero broke into it without any trouble. Putting Duo on the backseat, Heero was soon mixing with as many cars as he could on an interstate, satisfied that he was making any pursuit impossible.  
  
Duo didn't stir and his breathing was shallow. Heero kept looking over the seat back at him, risking a collision as he expertly maneuvered in and out of traffic. Once or twice, he thought Duo had stopped breathing all together. Heero panicked each time, his entire body and mind acting as if it had been given a terrible shock. He shook, he shivered, he licked dry lips, taking long minutes to recover when Duo finally began to breathe again.  
  
"I feel like a Gundam ate me for lunch and then shit me out," a very faint whisper came to Heero's ear. Heero smiled and it hurt.  
  
"Quiet, Baka," Heero told Duo sharply.  
  
Duo was still drugged and not feeling any pain. "Still alive," he said in amazement. "At least, I think I am. Weak. Drained. Hm, not quite drained. Have to pee."  
  
Heero snagged a small, plastic litter bag from under the dash and tossed it back at Duo. "All there is," he informed him. "Can't stop."  
  
"Hm, it'll leak," Duo replied dubiously, but then was quiet. "K, now what?"  
  
"Here," Heero reached back without taking his eyes from the road. A heavy bag was put into his hand. He rolled down the window, tossed it out, and then rolled the window back up again.  
  
"Is this going to hurt like Hell when the drugs wear off?" Duo wondered and then , in soft shock and anger, "Some of my hair is gone!"  
  
"Not noticeable if you comb over it," Heero replied.  
  
"Is that the truth or a joke? I can never tell with you," Duo growled and then sighed and was quiet.  
  
Heero glanced over the seat and saw that Duo's eyes were closed in sleep again, but that his breathing was steadier now. That smile came to Heero's lips again, stiff and painful. He reached up and touched it. On a soldier level, he didn't think that such stressful, distracting emotions could be good. He needed to concentrate on getting them both to safety and then making sure that Deathscythe was recovered and the mission completed. He needed more control, Heero thought, but he supposed that control would come with experience. Once he understood what he was feeling, and why, he could better avoid situations that caused such intense reactions. He had decided to care, to have another reason to win the war besides a goal of perfection. It didn't mean that he would forget his training entirely or allow himself to be less than his best. He would allow himself to worry about Duo, to want him to live, to be happy that he wasn't brain damaged, but he couldn't allow those emotions to get in the way of his first duty; the war. Balance, Heero thought, he needed to find balance between the two.  
  
+  
  
In his wide, ornate bed in one of the many Winner estate houses, Duo snapped, "Well? Are you just going to stand there and stare at me all day long?"  
  
Heero had been doing just that. Wearing a black jacket and black gloves, he was hunched down and looking keenly at Duo from under his thatch of dark hair. After a long week of recovery, Duo was finally looking better. He was acting better as well and that was a point of irritation for Heero, though he couldn't explain why.  
  
"One of Quatre's desert soldiers came from this room," Heero said, stating the obvious.  
  
Duo smiled impishly and leaned back in his bed. He was wearing a pair of dark shorts and a white tank top. Sitting cross legged and supported against a mound of pillows, he looked comfortable and sated, his pale skin flushed pink. Solo's, Heero saw along one leg, and the Oz brand, and... something else he hadn't noticed before, another, smaller tattoo on the inside of Duo's thigh in a very neat script. Solo N' Kid.   
  
"Why?" Heero asked, needing information, needing to understand. "Why so many? Why so often? You aren't well. Is this sexual urge so strong that you can't wait until you recover?"  
  
Duo looked down and saw that Heero could see his most personal tattoo. He put a hand over it, but it was more of caress. "I just like fucking, Heero. Nothing deep or mysterious about that," he replied, but his voice was tight and not as nonchalant as he wanted it to be.  
  
"I don't like it," Heero found himself saying and then flushed. Why had he said that? What did it matter whether Duo had sex with every man and woman on the estate? It didn't concern him. It didn't harm Duo. The emotion surfacing contradicted those words. It was a dark emotion and strong. It minded that Duo had sex with other people. It minded a great deal and it wasn't responding to Heero's efforts to control it.  
  
"You don't like sex?" Duo misunderstood. "That's too bad. I wanted to do you next."  
  
It wasn't what Heero wanted to hear. Those words twisted in his gut. Emotions surfaced, tangled, confused him, and sent him from the room, almost breaking the door to get out.  
  
"Heero?!" Duo was stumbling after him, still weak, a hand against one wall of the hallway to support him. His braid swung like a pendulum as he tried to hurry, his face anxious. "Stop!"  
  
Heero did stop, but he didn't turn, hands clenched into fists. "My Gundam needs maintenance," Heero said over his shoulder. "I stopped by on my way there to see if you were operational yet."  
  
"I'm not a piece of machinery, Heero," Duo replied. "Don't talk to me as if I were. You're upset. I want to know why. I've never seen you like this. You were so cold and distant before. Now... something's changed, hasn't it?"  
  
"Yes," Heero admitted and then left Duo there, unable to cope with what he was feeling any longer. There had to be a way to control it. It was hurting too much.  
  
Heero didn't go to his Gundam, instead he walked out of the safe house and down into the woods. It was cold and the air was thin. He hunched into his coat with his hands in his pockets and tried to clear his head.  
  
"Nice day for a walk," Duo said and Heero spun in surprise. The pilot of Deathscythe was tottering after him, out of breath, pale, and still in his shorts and tank top. He had only stopped long enough in his pursuit of Heero to put on some low boots.  
  
"Go back!" Heero exclaimed.  
  
"I'll use your patented phrase, 'hn', as a reply, and see how you deal with it, okay, Mr. Silent Treatment?" Duo panted and sat down on a log.   
  
Heero took off his coat and handed it to Duo. Heero had on a thick undershirt. Duo made note of that before he accepted the offer. Then he pulled Heero's coat on and huddled inside of it gratefully, legs drawn up close to his body.  
  
Heero stared at the shivering Duo. "Why are you with those people?" Heero found himself asking.  
  
Duo didn't mock him or laugh and pass it off. He regarded Heero thoughtfully, his purple eyes serious under his chestnut bangs. "I've been searching for something."  
  
Heero understood that. "Information?" It wasn't unusual for an operative to dupe a target with sex, but Duo hadn't been targeting enemies. Heero was confused.  
  
"Of a kind," Duo told him, "and it is a mission."  
  
"Classified?" Heero wondered.  
  
"Not to you," Duo replied and his eyes became intense. "You see, when I was very young, and living on the streets of L2, I had the best friend a person could ever have."  
  
"Solo," Heero interjected and Duo nodded.  
  
"Solo." Duo wrapped his arms about his knees and regarded Heero over them. "We were everything to each other, inseparable, brothers in everything except blood. If he had lived, we would have been lovers too." Duo sighed self deprecatingly. "I've been looking for someone just like that, Heero, someone who will always be there for me and a part of me, heart and soul." He looked down and picked at the dry bark on the log. "I guess I was getting desperate, going through men and women like some sort of back street whore... but it wasn't about the sex, Heero. It was just a way to get close to them without getting too close, without making a commitment I don't want to make with anyone but that one person, the one person who can take Solo's place."  
  
Heero's hands clenched. "I don't understand what I'm feeling," he said quietly. "I don't like it. I don't want to feel this way any longer."  
  
Duo looked at him with raised eyebrows. "What do you mean?"  
  
Heero touched the back of his head and lightly touched the still healing wound. The soldier part of him balked, but the reemerging Human side couldn't hold back, couldn't not seek help. "I want to tell you something about myself..."  
  
Duo gave him the ghost of a smile, but he was still serious as he said in surprise. "Wasn't that classified information?"  
  
"Not to you," Heero replied, echoing Duo's words. He explained about the implant. He wasn't ready for Duo to be so angry. Duo came off of the log, closed the few steps between them, and dug hands into Heero's shirt.  
  
"You gave up everything that makes life worth living for the war?!" Duo was incredulous. "I can't even begin to understand that kind of warped thinking! Heero, we're fighting for our right to be free, to do as we please, to govern as we see fit, and to live our lives in peace. How can you fight when you reject as weak and unimportant, the very things that you are fighting for?"  
  
"I know that it was wrong," Heero replied. "I know that some detachment from emotions is necessary to be an effective soldier, but to exclude all of them creates a vacuum."  
  
Duo frowned, asking, "Which will you pick and chose to have, Heero? How will you know which ones are the important ones?"  
  
"I don't know," Heero replied. "I'm am still analyzing them. I don't understand what I am feeling now, or if it is necessary to feel this way at all."  
  
"That's right," Duo said, looking into Heero's eyes worriedly. "Don't jettison something when you don't know what it is, soldier. Maybe, if could explain why you suddenly changed your mind about having feelings, and explain to me how you feel now, I could help you."  
  
Heero looked down at Duo's clutching hands. It seemed an awkward position, vulnerable, yet Heero didn't want Duo to stop touching him, possessing him with those two hands. It was another strange idea. Another emotion he didn't understand.  
  
"You showed me that you could have emotions and still be effective," Heero replied. "I believed I was right, that Dr. J was right to deny them, until then."  
  
"When?" Duo pressed, eyes large and almost glowing with intensity. "Tell me exactly when you knew, when you understood."  
  
"When you were lying in the darkness dying and I was repairing Deathscythe," Heero replied and felt a reluctance, a shyness that was confusing. "You didn't object. You didn't make any sounds. You allowed me to continue my mission. I- I didn't want you to die. I knew that I had to save you, that I had to stop allowing the implant to control my will and help you."  
  
"Why?" Duo pressed, leaning even closer. He was warm, warmer than he should have been in a pair of shorts and loafers. "I was dying. You didn't have any hope of saving me. Why change everything you believed, everything that you were at that moment, to save me?"  
  
Heero felt that painful squeezing of his chest and the twisting in his gut that was almost dizzying. He was overwhelmed by emotion. He tried to regain control and only half succeeded as he whispered back. "I don't know. I don't have any words for the things I felt then, that I feel now. I've never been allowed to feel such things before."  
  
Duo suddenly reached out and cupped Heero's chin. His touch was electric and pleasant. He pulled Heero towards him and kissed him on the lips. It wasn't a soft kiss, it was deep and full of life, hungry and needy. Heero felt a warmth spread through every part of his body and center on that kiss. It was masculine, commanding... Duo's lips commanded Heero to open for him.  
  
Duo's tongue darted inside of Heero's mouth and it wasn't an invasion. It was sweet and Heero found himself trembling and closing his eyes. The protesting soldier in him was drowned out by the beating of his heart, as Duo's hands slipped into the waist band of his pants and slowly worked them down. Duo's hands were expert, but that didn't matter to Heero. It only mattered that they were Duo's hands, touching him with feeling and something other than cold, callous, direction. It was his first taste of gentleness and Heero wanted more... much more as he came alive in Duo's hands and the place bellow his navel began to want.  
  
"Is it just sex, what you're feeling for me, Heero?" Duo whispered, releasing Heero's lips and leaning so that his hot breath tickled Heero's ear. "You've never been this close to another person, I bet, not like this. Cold, callous, emotionless soldier. I don't think the recipe for that included tucking you in at night and drying your tears, am I right? Did you save my life, because I gave you more than that, because I tried to be your friend? Was it because I showed you how truly empty your one dimension soldier life was? Maybe it's gratitude your feeling, and nothing else." He chuckled as Heero shook even more. "Hard to tell, isn't it? That's why I get the sex out of the way first. Once that's over with... well, I never felt anything for anyone past that."  
  
"What else is there?" Heero managed to ask, his head spinning and a gasp coming from his lips as Duo's hands slid to his backside and rubbed him there. "Sex. Gratitude. I don't know what I'm feeling."  
  
"There is something else," Duo replied and licked at Heero's earlobe. "When everything else is burned away and used up, it will remain, if it ever existed in that iron heart of yours. Want to find out?"  
  
"How?" Heero whispered back, losing control of everything, even his voice.  
  
"Sacrifice a little. Pay me back for making you human again. Satisfy your body. Clear your mind of all the clutter," Duo told him and then smiled against Heero's neck, kissing it gently. "Most of all, trust me. Let down that super soldier guard of yours. Let me have my way with you."  
  
Heero didn't say yes, he just couldn't resist Duo any longer. He melted against the young man and Duo, though he was much weaker, had strong arms to hold him up until they both sank to the leaf strewn ground.  
  
It was very sweet, the best feeling Heero had ever experienced. It was also a sacrifice. Duo wasn't going to spare him. Heero couldn't protest, couldn't stop the unfolding events. Duo was like a runaway train and Heero was bound to the tracks by his own confusion and roiling, unnamed, emotions. He couldn't escape, even when Duo rolled him onto his stomach, kissed and caressed his back and then eased into him with a long, stiff member that was both pleasure and pain, the force of it softened only by the saliva from Duo's mouth.  
  
Duo paused, holding Heero. That was pain too, nerves enraged, inner cavity breached and stretched impossibly wide. Duo seemed frozen, forever poised, hands under Heero's stomach and holding Heero's swollen member. Heero lifted his hips, both to escape those maddening hands and to relieve the pressure of being filled too much. Duo pressed deeper in response, refusing to be bucked off, hands beginning to stroke at last and hips beginning to pump ever so gently.  
  
Heero felt something wet on the back of his neck, followed by the kiss of Duo's trembling lips. He was rolled over and Heero found himself looking up into Duo's eyes. They were full of tears. Duo entered him again and moved just as gently, even more so as he stared down into Heero's eyes with an emotion Heero didn't understand, but that made the emotions twisting and burning inside of himself grow more intense in response.  
  
The world exploded. Heero bucked upwards, gripping at Duo with iron hard hands. His vision went dim as his mind reeled, a violent sensation swelling and releasing in his groin and a wetness spurting across both their bellies. His insides tightened and he felt a wet heat fill him, making his first, conscious orgasm that much more intense as Duo came too.  
  
They lay locked together afterwards, Duo's cheek resting just under Heero's chin. Heero reached up and caressed Duo's chestnut hair, feeling suddenly possessive and possessed at the same time.  
  
"So, "Duo finally said as if dreading the answer. "What now? Mind blowing sex. No more gratitude, you've certainly paid me back a hundred times... You must not feel anything now. Mission accomplished. Head clear, right?"  
  
"No," Heero replied quietly, frowning, trying to understand and put it into words. He slid hands along Duo's back and pulled him close. "It hurts. My chest hurts and I don't know why. I want... I want you to be with me, always. I want to pull you inside of me somehow... It is illogical, but it is the way I feel. I don't want to move from here, even though we might starve or freeze to death. It doesn't matter as long as you are here, like this, with me. It isn't the sex. That hurt and I think I will have to learn how to do that better. It isn't gratitude. I don't feel that I am indebted to you. Duo... tell me what this is that I'm feeling. It's like the sex, terrible and wonderful at the same time. I want it to stop, to go away, and yet I don't."  
  
"Are you afraid?" Duo asked.  
  
"Yes," Heero admitted.  
  
"Why?" Duo wondered.  
  
"I feel...," Heero tried to explain, floundering and not able to help thinking he was being weak and ridiculous, that Duo would laugh at him, or worse, leave him there in the forest and in the cold.  
  
"Tell me," Duo urged.  
  
"I'm afraid that you don't want me, that you won't want to stay with me," Heero replied. "I'm afraid that you don't know what this feeling inside of me is, that you don't feel it too, even though I don't know why I should want you to feel such pain and confusion too."  
  
Duo was quiet for a long moment and then he took Heero's hand and moved his leg so that Heero could touch his most personal tattoo. "I was Solo's," Duo told him. "We were a team. Solo n' Kid. I thought I loved him. I didn't. What I felt for him, was just gratitude and friendship." Duo leaned over Heero and brushed Heero's face with his fingertips as if memorizing every line. "What I felt for him wasn't anything like this, Heero. I thought it was love, but this is love. This is the most powerful thing that I've ever felt, Heero, what I feel for you. That's what I think you're feeling too."  
  
"Love?" Heero smiled. It wasn't so terrible now that it had a name. He had often heard love mentioned and remembered Dr. J. telling him that it was over rated and better left unfelt. Now, Heero felt anger mix with that powerful emotion, anger for having lived so many years without it, without anyone feeling it for him or allowing him to feel it for others.  
  
"You all right?" Duo wondered and Heero knew that Duo was afraid too, afraid that he was wrong, afraid that Heero didn't really feel love for him.  
  
Fear and pain were a part of it, Heero realized, and he could see that fear and pain growing and overwhelming him easily if Duo were to reject him now. "Duo, I think... I think that , if you told me that you didn't feel the same way, that this was one of the jokes you like to play, or if you were saying the things you say to others to get sex from them, it would hurt so bad, make me so weak, that I would want to die."  
  
Duo smiled and wrapped arms and legs around Heero. He sighed, but it sounded happy. "I feel the same way, Heero. It has to be love." He went suddenly still. "You don't think it's one of the bad emotions you should get rid of, do you? You won't change your mind and suddenly consider it a distraction in the war?"  
  
"Distraction?" Heero considered that seriously and felt Duo begin to tremble, begin to be unsure. Love was a terrible emotion. It could destroy. It could rip a person apart moment to moment depending on the whims of the person being loved. Yet, Heero felt whole for the first time in his life. He felt full of energy, full of determination. He felt that he had a purpose and a stake in the war, that he had someone to protect.  
  
"I don't want to stop loving you," Hero said. "I don't want to go back now that I know what life can be."  
  
"But the war-," Duo began, wanting to be absolutely sure, not wanting the agony of betrayal later on.  
  
"For you, I will win the war. It will not stop me from being with you, from being in love with you," Heero told Duo strongly. "I don't think anything can now."  
  
"It's all gone to your head!" Duo chuckled, but with an edge of accusation in his voice, "Minutes ago, you didn't even know what love was and now you can make me promises like that?"  
  
"Yes," Heero replied seriously. "Can you?"  
  
Duo smiled, slow and sweet," Yeah, I can, actually. Don't ask me how, but it's true."  
  
"Then, " Heero said as he sat up and pulled Duo into his arms. "I will take you back to your room where it is warm and, after you rest, you can instruct me-"  
  
"In more sexual practices?" Duo broke in with a laugh as he wrapped his arms about Heero's neck .   
  
"No," Heero replied, but felt a smile on his lips at the thought. "I need you to teach me more about emotions, about being..." He didn't want to say 'normal'. It brought to mind his painful, cold, life. He didn't want to think of that now in the warmth they had built between them.   
  
Duo understood. "I will, but, unless you want everyone to know what we were doing out here, you better pull up your pants, Heero Yuy."  
  
Heero looked down and saw his pants still around his ankles. He felt a blush of confusion and then laughed. It came out strangled and abrupt and it startled both Duo and himself. Duo laughed at his expression and the laughter became infectious. Heero continued to laugh more naturally as he pulled up his pants. The laughter didn't stop, even as he helped Duo to his feet and began assisting him back towards the safe house. It cleaned him inside and out, that laughter, and, by the time that they reached the house and passed through the doorway, Heero felt that he was leaving the cold, perfect soldier behind. The man who stepped through the doorway had changed into someone else, someone who was grabbing humanity with both hands and determined never to let it or Duo go again.  
  
Owari


End file.
